[zaebis]

Ok I heard it all from completely useless to great value for money...

I would like to hear from someone who actually ran the machine and took it to the limit (reasonable limit) of its performance.


Aluminum:

-1/2, 3/8, 1/4 clean endmills what reasonable DOC and feed can I achieve ?
-1/2, 3/8, 1/4 roughing endmills what reasonable DOC and feed can I expect ?
-indexable end/face mills. What is realistic max size?

Same for 1018 and 12L14 steels (can it even cut steel with its rigidity or lack of it thereof) ?

and last but not least is precision. Is it comparable with big HAASe (proper milling technique observed)? Like will it hold below a though concentricity precision on a 4" round interpolated?

p.s. pls dont tell me to use VF1 instead, I would like to know practical performance of TM1 only !

[Geof]

Have a look at this thread: http://www.cnczone.com/forums/haas_m...rformance.html

All the TM machines have the same spindle and servos only the axis lengths are different.

I think they are good value for money. Certainly they are not a VF2 sporting a 10,000rpm spindle and if someone buys one expecting that type of machine they are being silly.

The precision/accuracy is just the same as all the other Haas mills. They will machine steel perfectly well provided you recognise that a 3" face mill is not possible. However, 1-1/2" is fine and will handle a reasonable rate of material removal. Larger end mills, 5/8" and up, can be problematic in steel because the spindle does not have a lot of torque.

[underthetire]

As long as your not in a hurry, they cut ok. Alum and soft steel are fine, but pushing it in steel will not work well. They have tiny guides, and not a huge amount of torque in the spindle. the problem I see on them, is after you add options like a tool changer, they didn't seem to be much cheaper than a vf series. Price went up this year because of the enclosures that are required now. Our old hurco hawk machines do seem to outcut them, but the haas is much more reliable. We are getting a tm 2 delivered tomorrow. I'm actually looking forward to strip it down, since we only wanted the axis.