Torus Pro As A "Production" Machine

My Torus Pro had its first real, full day as a "production" machine, and it performed magnificently! Yesterday I "upgraded" the coolant reservoir to an 18 gallon transparent container, keeping the bucket-in-a-bucket chip strainer, which works wonderfully. I also added the hose and nozzle you see in the first picture, to help in cleaning up the machine.

Today the machine ran non-stop for 10 hours, producing all of the parts below, and, in the process, created easily 25 gallons of chips. The last part made looks just as good as the first - and ALL 43 pieces were made with the same $10 HSS endmill, which is still cutting very well! Each part starts out as a 1.25" x 3" x 6" piece of 6061, and machining removes roughly 2/3 of the material, and takes 4 tool changes. Only the top-side machining was done today, the bottom side, which goes much faster, will be done tomorrow morning.

It is necessary to stop fairly often to sweep off the Y axis bellows, and push all the chips into the drain. I had to empty the bucket filter several times as well, in addition to just shoveling lots of chips directly from the chip trays into the garbage can. Other than that one minor nuisance, the machine worked extremely well - not one single problem of any kind. Needless to say, I am VERY happy with the machines performance!

Let's see a Tormach do that much work in one day! :-)

Attachment 181911

Attachment 181912

Attachment 181913

Attachment 181914

Attachment 181915

Lookin' good! 25 gallons of chips - that's crazy!

How did you do the tapping? I'm guessing the machine did it; did you use a thread mill or a tap? Personally, I've had to chase all the holes I've thread milled with a hand tap before I could get a screw into them. If they are 1/4-20 and you thread milled them would you mind sharing the speed and feed you used?

It looks like you used a 0.5" end mill. I think I recall you saying you use 2-flute mills, is that what you used here as well? How many passes did you take in the main area? It looks like 2, but it's so smooth it's hard to tell.

Tapping I still do by hand, using a hand tapping fixture. I find it quick, easy, and reliable, and it gives me something to do while other parts are being milled, so overall throughput is better than if I did it on the mill.

All the milling was done with a single 1/2" 2-flute HSS endmill, with a 0.010" finish pass. Right now, I'm using very conservative feeds and speeds, as I'm more interested in consistent, reliable production than I am fastest-possible production. Plenty of time to speed things up later. Roughing was done at 2900 RPM, 20 IPM, 0.25" DOC, 90% stepover. Finishing was done at 3900 RPM, 0.010" DOC, 35 IPM. These parts took just over 15 min. each, though I could easily reduce that to 10 minutes or less by making the code more efficient, and using more aggressive feeds and speeds.

If you can't get the screws into thread-milled holes, you need to adjust your cutting parameters - probably just need to go a few though larger diameter.

Regards,
Ray L.

Looks great, Ray. Those were some nice big chips you were pulling off of there. You do recycle those, right? :)
I use smaller tools and aluminum and steel mixed all week long, so I can't recycle those chips, but I turn mostly brass on my lathe. All that gets recycled. My Son takes all the drops, scraps, chips and offcuts in every few months for beer money. He generally gets $150 to $200 for it and helps save the planet too. ;)

Your machine is working great too. I know how that feels. Keep up the cool stuff and mods. Always looking forward to the next one. :)

Lee,

I do recycle them, but don't get much for them locally - about $0.10/pound. They don't like taking chips.

Regards,
Ray L.

Ray;
Looking good! Glad to see the Pro becoming a very dependable machine. I may see one in my future but it will most likely be used for hobby use only. What is the parts for???
Bill

Bill,

One of my products is a state-of-the-art wasted spark distributor-less ignition conversion kit for Jaguar cars from the '40s through '70s,mostly E-Types (aka XK-Es in the US). That part is the bracket that mounts the triple coilpack where the distributor used to was.

Attachment 181929

Regards,
Ray L.

Our salvage places won't take chips that have had coolant in it. They are setup to take dry chips and curls though. They have rather large bins that they dump into. Full of seperated chips and small parts from turnings and millings and drillings.

That is a very nice looking kit. Helping to keep some fine automobiles on the road with that. Excellent.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HimyKabibble

Tapping I still do by hand, using a hand tapping fixture. I find it quick, easy, and reliable, and it gives me something to do while other parts are being milled, so overall throughput is better than if I did it on the mill.

---

I found much the same thing, but the machine I am currently using is not suited for tapping. If precision is not super high I don't drill or pocket holes on the mill either. I just spot the holes, drill on one drill press, and tap on the next with an automatic reversing tapping head. I'm starting to get enough of a collection of machine taps I need to come up with an organizer for them. I used to hand tap, but found I didn't have the patience for it. A tapping head with a drop of TapMagic in each hole is like magic when working on 6061. Through holes are a dream with spiral point taps, and blind holes are not bad with a spiral flute tap if you set the clutch light, and plan your full depth tap extension properly. For the smaller holes (in aluminum) I tend to use forming taps because the taps are stronger, and can take more abuse. Took me a long time to find a tap drill chart for forming taps though.

I think you're right about just needing to increase the diameter by a couple thousandths. I'll slightly reduce the diameter of the tool in my CAM software. So far I've been able to use a hand tap to clean the whole hole in one pass (I don't have to clean out the tap) so it's gotta be pretty close.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hirudin

I think you're right about just needing to increase the diameter by a couple thousandths. I'll slightly reduce the diameter of the tool in my CAM software. So far I've been able to use a hand tap to clean the whole hole in one pass (I don't have to clean out the tap) so it's gotta be pretty close.

---

Could be deflection of the cutter, backlash of the machine, or just not cutting deep enough to accommodate the flat on the edge of the thread of the screw or bolt. Remember that "most" bolt holes are not a precision close tolerance fit. They lock pieces together from the friction on the flats of the threads. If precision alignment of two pieces not otherwise aligned is required a press fit alignment pin is usually a more accurate way to position the pieces relative to each other.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HimyKabibble

My Torus Pro had its first real, full day as a "production" machine, and it performed magnificently! Yesterday I "upgraded" the coolant reservoir to an 18 gallon transparent container, keeping the bucket-in-a-bucket chip strainer, which works wonderfully. I also added the hose and nozzle you see in the first picture, to help in cleaning up the machine.

Today the machine ran non-stop for 10 hours, producing all of the parts below, and, in the process, created easily 25 gallons of chips. The last part made looks just as good as the first - and ALL 43 pieces were made with the same $10 HSS endmill, which is still cutting very well! Each part starts out as a 1.25" x 3" x 6" piece of 6061, and machining removes roughly 2/3 of the material, and takes 4 tool changes. Only the top-side machining was done today, the bottom side, which goes much faster, will be done tomorrow morning.

It is necessary to stop fairly often to sweep off the Y axis bellows, and push all the chips into the drain. I had to empty the bucket filter several times as well, in addition to just shoveling lots of chips directly from the chip trays into the garbage can. Other than that one minor nuisance, the machine worked extremely well - not one single problem of any kind. Needless to say, I am VERY happy with the machines performance!

Let's see a Tormach do that much work in one day! :-)

Attachment 181911

Attachment 181912

Attachment 181913

Attachment 181914

Attachment 181915

---

Nice. There's finally someone else shouting the merits of the Pro

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MRM RCModels

Nice. There's finally someone else shouting the merits of the Pro

---

P.S. Yeah. What he said!

What CAM do you use?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by GJeff

What CAM do you use?

---

I use Sheetcam, with my own post-post-processor that parses the Sheetcam g-code and modifies it pretty extensively.

Regards,
Ray L.

Ray,
That's great to hear. I'm "chompin' at the bit". mine should be here in a week or so.
Thanks for sharing.

-Matt

Mine should be shipped either tomorrow or next week. How long did these take to get through Customs once shipped?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LeeWay

Mine should be shipped either tomorrow or next week. How long did these take to get through Customs once shipped?

---

Mine arrived roughly one week after it shipped from Toronto. It was pretty darned quick! Going by truck, there should not be any customs delay, if the paperwork is done properly - it's all handled at the point of entry.

Regards,
Ray L.

Whoa. Lots sooner than I expected, but not sooner than I can use. ;)

I bought a 2" face mill and a 4" vise from Shars that arrived today. Both looked pretty good.
I will document and start a thread when mine gets here.
It will probably be one of the last Torus's since the Pulsar is out. There will still be plenty more of the Torus Pro's like yours though I suspect. Especially after reading your threads. :)
They had a hand in my decision. Prodded me to research some more and finally get off the fence.

I just LOVE this machine! I finished off those 43 parts, all came out perfect. Next step was creating three 2" x 2" x 11.5" blocks. I surfaced them with my Glacern 4" face mill, and they look practically like mirrors. After surfacing all three pieces, they all measure *exactly* the same, within the 0.0005" resolution of my height gauge.

Here are all the fixtures I'll be using to make the remaining parts for the ignition kits I'm making:

Attachment 182035

I'll be using them to turn all of this aluminum into hundreds of gallons of chips:

Attachment 182036

Attachment 182037

Regards,
Ray L.