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IndustryArena Forum > MetalWorking Machines > Tormach Personal CNC Mill > Sick of Tormach's poor customer service
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  1. #41
    Join Date
    Apr 2017
    Posts
    156

    Re: Sick of Tormach's poor customer service

    My experience is like that of @kstrauss and @popspipes.

    I have had some problems, and Tormach has solved them promptly. For example, when my 770 first arrived, I realized that by a few inches, it wouldn't fit in the dumbwaiter that I have rigged between my carport and my shop. It would have fit if the a Y-drive component weren't sticking out the back, but I didn't know if that component could be removed without, say, unloading some vital mechanical preload, or losing some difficult-to-replicate alignment.. Or, it might be that removing the housing would give me only a fraction of an inch before some irreducible component filled the space.

    I called Tormach and described the problem. The person I spoke to asked me to hold, then came back and told me that he had gone to a 770 there and opened up that housing. He told me what to expect there, what could easily be removed, how much clearance could thereby be gained (enough, it turns out), and what to watch for when I reassembled it.

    That was in 2017, but lesser interactions since then have been almost as unqualifiedly successful. Like @kstrauss, I have occasionally made suggestions that appeared in the next PathPilot release.

  2. #42

    Re: Sick of Tormach's poor customer service

    Quote Originally Posted by kstrauss View Post
    I hesitate to be a lone positive voice here but...
    I purchased my 770 in 2012 and, fortunately, I've never had a hardware problem that I couldn't solve myself so I haven't had to depend on them. I've ordered accessories and replacement parts which have arrived as quickly as expected considering international shipping delays.

    !
    These mills are so basic that it's not difficult to diagnose any problem . Personally I only needed support for warranty parts , that time has passed and they failed when I needed them . When the oilers crapped out I couldn't get help from support , after a couple weeks I bought new ones that arrived before I got the help I needed .
    Not long after buying my mills I inquired support about a 4th axis option , got a reply literally a month later .
    When I blew out the spindle driver I did get a quick reply from sales and quotes and I had parts within a couple days .
    Recently I needed a stepper motor , within a week and a half I contacted sales and quotes twice and presales once , no reply and that is unacceptable . Thats when I realized that a phone call is the only way to get things happening , but I had to deal with a crapping out mill for 2 weeks to find that out .
    The website has most of the parts needed for the 770 and 1100 , but , even though the 440's have been out for a few yrs there are very few parts that can be bought straight off the site

    I'm in Canada and when I need parts I will easily pay a couple hundred or whatever it takes for next day delivery no mater what the part is if it means a mill won't be down . All I need is someone on the other side to act within an appropriate time frame . The only time I need support is when something is broken , and i don't need someone to chitchat with over a cup of coffee .

    Since the trying to get a motor problem , I had a couple chats with presales over the phone recently and I stressed my concerns with how emails are ignored . He assured me that some things will need to change on their side and I hope they do .

    Anything that I've said on this thread is simply my experience and isn't to slam or knock tormach because I love my mills and I won't hesitate to buy more .
    But , there is most definitely room for improvements and I hope my conversations on the phone help them to realize there is a problem that needs to be resolved

  3. #43
    Join Date
    Nov 2020
    Posts
    3

    Re: Sick of Tormach's poor customer service

    Quote Originally Posted by Steve Seebold View Post
    Tormach customer service has gone straight to hell since the death of Greg Jackson.

    Actually, Tormach customer service has turned out to be the best possible sales staff Haas could hope for.
    I believe this as well. And if not specifically Haas, there will be/are others who will step up. The market IS there. Now moreso than ever. My latest interactions with Tormach have convinced me things are definitiely different. I am not young, and like many around here have started and run businesses. My perception, is my reality.

  4. #44
    Join Date
    Mar 2020
    Posts
    218

    Re: Sick of Tormach's poor customer service

    Honestly I'm with Kstrauss on this one. All my experiences with Tormach have been great. I've emailed a couple software bugs and always had a reply from a senior software engineer within a couple days. The one mechanical issue I've had took a few emails back and forth but the belt that turned out to have split slightly was replaced under warranty with no hassles. Phone calls are always routed quickly and I get a response to my question right away. Maybe not the response I had hoped for but usually the one I expect if nothing else. I really don't see any issue with their service after sales. Especially given my position in my day job and understanding first hand how easily a small crew gets overwhelmed when one or two people are out unexpectedly, I don't have any experience with Tormach doing anything wrong.

  5. #45

    Re: Sick of Tormach's poor customer service

    Tormach is in a precarious position. Much of their base wants cheap, some of it wants professional.

  6. #46

    Re: Sick of Tormach's poor customer service

    Quote Originally Posted by CL_MotoTech View Post
    Tormach is in a precarious position. Much of their base wants cheap, some of it wants professional.
    I think the machines sort of cover that .

    A guy can put a few stepper run tormachs in a shop vs a single haas mini mill which is pretty much the lowest end mill in the industrial market . They aren't professional machines but they can produce professional results for lighter work .
    As it stands , the production parts that I make on my mills would have little to gain on a base mini mill except for the tool changer . And , a base mill without the high speed option would be bouncing off the ground with the surfacing programs I run , and produce poorer results

    I just hope that tormach's advancements to servos doesn't eventually lead to the death of their stepper run machines

  7. #47
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Posts
    591

    Re: Sick of Tormach's poor customer service

    I just hope that tormach's advancements to servos doesn't eventually lead to the death of their stepper run machines
    The difference between "stepper" and "servo" is a microcontroller chip in the driver box and a rotational sensor on the output shaft, both of which are pretty cheap parts these days -- like $4 BOM difference. I'm a bit surprised that steppers are still so common in new designs -- the additional engineering to just make it a servo is minuscule.

  8. #48

    Re: Sick of Tormach's poor customer service

    $4 ?? I've never seen a servo retrofit system sold for the same price as a stepper motor system

    the difference between the base 770m and the 770mx is 9k . My preference would be to buy 2 stepper machines over one servo machine any day

  9. #49
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Posts
    591

    Re: Sick of Tormach's poor customer service

    I understand that the difference in price charged in the market is much higher.

    But, if I were to build a stepper motor driver and a stepper motor in China, versus building a stepper-based servo motor by adding a sensor and some smarts in the driver, the difference in parts cost is TINY. You glue a magnet to the shaft, put a SPI chip next to it in the enclosure, wire it up to the controller with a couple of feedback wires, and make sure the box has a small microcontroller in it. Done! In fact, the additional cost of the wires in the wiring harness would be the biggest expense.

    If you want servo control with fancier motors, it will cost a little more, but BLDC / ECM motors are getting pretty darn close to steppers in cost (same amount of wiring, less iron, more magnets) and BLDC driver circuitry is approximately the same cost as stepper drivers (three output FET totem poles instead of four, so slightly cheaper!) Especially when you already have the sensor on the motor for servo purposes.

    The future is absolutely servos. Steppers are relegated to $29 printers and such; they just don't know it yet!

  10. #50

    Re: Sick of Tormach's poor customer service

    I believe that steppers will continue to be used until servos come down to the same market price as steppers , which I don't see happening any time soon .

    Steppers may not be near the same speed as servos but they serve the purpose well . A haas mini mill would have no real benefit for the parts I run which have a run time of 1/2 hr to 1.5 hrs . I know this from experience with my mills , haas mills and a wide variety of higher end mills in the industry .

    Most shops I've worked in only powered down the mills at Christmas , otherwise they run 24/7 . Aside from the 27/7 I'm very much the same where I rarely shut down my mills and they don't lose position and they run and run day to day .
    A 10k servo driven spindle would be of benefit for obvious reasons , but other than that I have zero issue using stepper motors

    Obviously servo vs stepper is an old beat to death topic and everyone has their own opinion of it , so in that sense I say to each his own .
    Last edited by metalmayhem; 01-06-2021 at 09:43 AM.

  11. #51
    Join Date
    Apr 2013
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    1788

    Re: Sick of Tormach's poor customer service

    I'll not get involved in a discussion of the possible advantages of servos for a Tormach class machine. However, jwatte is correct about costs. $4 may be a little low but there is nowhere near a $9K difference in cost between manufacturing a stepper and a servo based mill. Jodi Olivent and others have posted YouTube videos of upgrading Tormachs to servo for far less. If you are interested in what is involved in designing a servo driver, Google "STMBL" for an open source project that includes PCB layouts and source code for the required microprocessor.

  12. #52

    Re: Sick of Tormach's poor customer service

    Not sure what gives the impression that I have no knowledge of servos
    , I just don't see it as cost effective or any really benefit on what I consider to be toy machines . I don't disagree with what it costs china to make one vs the other , but the market prices don't reflect that .

    I didn't buy mills because I'm a weekender who wants to make the odd thing , cnc has been my career for for many yrs , the only difference now is I don't work for someone else designing and making their parts , fixtures etc , I'm making mine . And my decisions are always based on my experience and knowledge . If I wanted industrial machines then I'd have them .

    The stepper driven tormachs are cost effective with zero overhead and they get the job done . If a mill has serious problems it will be loaded into the back of a pickup and dropped at the scrapper , then I'll replace it for less than the cost of a spindle replacement on an industrial cnc .

    A similarity to stepper vs servo is 440 vs 770 vs 1100 . I often see guys post asking about a smaller mill but it seems that the concept that bigger is better always prevails , because " you may need a bigger table in the future " . I often look at my torus and think that I could plunk another 3 440's in the space it takes up , but thats just me

    I think the jump in the cost of the new tormachs puts them near a level that will hurt them seriously if they discontinue the stepper run mills . The first thing I think when I look at the new 1100 is I'd buy haas before that . I could see the justification if they went with linear slides , but servos on a dovetail machine is like putting a hemi in a k car

    Like I said , to each his own . We all know and want/have what works for us . We all have our own opinion which isn't going to be the same as the next guy , and thats because we aren't making the same parts as the next guy .

  13. #53
    Join Date
    Apr 2013
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    1788

    Re: Sick of Tormach's poor customer service

    We make our purchase decisions based on individual perceptions of what is the best choice; there is no right answer for everyone. Knowing the underlying manufacturing costs of various alternative design choices often provides insights into likely future price trends. Today there is a huge price difference between otherwise similar servo and stepper based designs. I don't think that the price difference will persist.

  14. #54

    Re: Sick of Tormach's poor customer service

    it'll be interesting to see what happens in the future . I remember the days when made in Japan meant cheap trash goods , quite similar to the position China is in . We all know where Japanese product and technology stands now . Unless things change I doubt China's future will be much different and Chinese goods will go up in quality , and higher quality always means higher cost . The only difference is that todays goods are somewhat different from before

    Building an at home diy cnc now vs 20 years ago has a night and day difference . Skate bearings have been replaced with real world linear slides , acme screws have been replaced with low cost ballscrews , steppers motors have gone from buying from surplus to off the shelf etc etc . A lot has changed . I don't doubt that stepper run machines will eventually be phased out but I think it's still a long ways yet .

  15. #55
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Posts
    5

    Re: Sick of Tormach's poor customer service

    Quote Originally Posted by jwatte View Post
    The difference between "stepper" and "servo" is a microcontroller chip in the driver box and a rotational sensor on the output shaft, both of which are pretty cheap parts these days -- like $4 BOM difference. I'm a bit surprised that steppers are still so common in new designs -- the additional engineering to just make it a servo is minuscule.
    It's ironic that you made this comment in a customer service thread about Tormach.

    I was talking to Greg Jackson back at a Little Machine Shop open house many moons ago about the fact that servos just don't cost that much more than steppers (and it was a *while* ago since he's been gone since 2015 ).

    His completely candid answer was that any major feature change adds about 30-40% (about 300K-400K, at the time, IIRC) to his annual customer support budget for about 3 years. So, a new feature like that must net profit worth almost a million dollars over 3 years.

    At that point, it was obvious that servos weren't going to ever get added short of a competitor offering them or without a significant bump to the base cost of the machine.

  16. #56
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Posts
    157

    Re: Sick of Tormach's poor customer service

    I owe Tormach an apology. They actually responded very rapidly to my email request.....but it went to an old email address that I don't use anymore, so I didn't see it for a couple of weeks.
    No insight as to the cause though, but we're still talking

  17. #57
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Posts
    2100

    Re: Sick of Tormach's poor customer service

    In the distant past vendors were encouraged to participate and many had group moderator privileges which of course got abused. They are still encouraged to participate, but not having control may be a reason some don't.
    Bob La Londe
    http://www.YumaBassMan.com

  18. #58

    Re: Sick of Tormach's poor customer service

    my transition from mach to pathpilot was pretty painless . I've got hundreds of programs that I needed to edit to make them more pathpilot friendly , and a macro that I made in notepad++ gives me a one touch method to do so

  19. #59
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    2151

    Re: Sick of Tormach's poor customer service

    Quote Originally Posted by mountaindew View Post

    Imho Tormach should create and manage a private user support forum for people to ask and find answers about the machines and tools.
    Many companies have them to help users maintain their product.
    Makes it easy for a user to search for and find answers to a problem and or post a question and not rely on tech support to repeat the same info over and over when you do get them on the phone.

    What say you?
    On topic of thread!

    Tormach appears to be working on this!

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