[mountaindew]

Another small project to help learn cam software and mill operations.
A vise milled out of scrap acrylic.
The design is based on drawings on Dean Williams web site. I modeled each part and run tool paths for each.
I have not found easy ways to flip parts in same program and not make it a little confusing using the g55. No big deal it works, but kind of kludged so far.
I found separate programs for each side of parts a little more natural for me at this point.
Anyway a couple pictures.

Attachment 220748


Attachment 220750


Thanks for Looking
Lane

[Steve Seebold]

Another small project to help learn cam software and mill operations.
A vise milled out of scrap acrylic.
The design is based on drawings on Dean Williams web site. I modeled each part and run tool paths for each.
I have not found easy ways to flip parts in same program and not make it a little confusing using the g55. No big deal it works, but kind of kludged so far.
I found separate programs for each side of parts a little more natural for me at this point.
Anyway a couple pictures.

Attachment 220748


Attachment 220750


Thanks for Looking
Lane

That is a cool project. You can see everything you do as you do it. A really cool busy work project as well. When I bought my first mill in 2001 ( a FADAL 3016 ) I made business card holder that looked like a machine vise. It was a really good way for me to get acquainted with the machine.

[mountaindew]

Thanks Steve,
I like to learn this way. It was lots of fun to build it and it works for business cards anyway .
The experience you get in one project is amazing. You get to see all the traps, pitfalls and errors in your design, cam operations, reference points, mills, tools, fixtures and g-code to shorten the very long list of things that spoil your work.
Still when it comes together it is so rewarding.

I would like to also mention and I will post some pictures of the apprentice work I did for first couple weeks.
I made a pile of acrylic blocks in a bunch of different sizes. Spending hours mounting rough material in vise and milling all 6 sides square.
I used and practiced different methods for doing this and figured one thing out.
I'm not real fond of squaring up material for a project or in this case a pile of it for all kinds of future projects.
Still it has to be done and another skill to master.

Thanks again for kind words and looking
Lane

[Steve Seebold]

Machining square and rectangular blocks is easy on the Tormach. If your material is tall enough, you can machine 5 sides of the block, then flip it over and cut the back side off.

You can even do that if you are working on a part that has a shape. You only need to cut the shape, when machine some soft jaws to hold the other side of your part. I do that all the time.

My PCNC 1100 will be 3 years old in July, and I love it as much today as I did on the first day I ran it. Would I rather have a machine like a Haas? Sure I would, but my Tormach didn't cost $75,000.00

It will do anything a Haas will do, it just takes a little longer. I can cut profiles and surfaces. I can even cut threads with it.

Here's some pictures of the parts I made to learn to run my FADAL.

[mountaindew]

Machining square and rectangular blocks is easy on the Tormach. If your material is tall enough, you can machine 5 sides of the block, then flip it over and cut the back side off.

You can even do that if you are working on a part that has a shape. You only need to cut the shape, when machine some soft jaws to hold the other side of your part. I do that all the time.

My PCNC 1100 will be 3 years old in July, and I love it as much today as I did on the first day I ran it. Would I rather have a machine like a Haas? Sure I would, but my Tormach didn't cost $75,000.00

It will do anything a Haas will do, it just takes a little longer. I can cut profiles and surfaces. I can even cut threads with it.

Here's some pictures of the parts I made to learn to run my FADAL.

Cool looking card holder! bet that fadal could just ram that out in no time.
These days don't know if I would want to pay power bill on such powerful tools yet alone buy one.
I see you live in cal. so I know your electrons are no cheaper.

I agree 100%, I don't have cnc or mill experience but I have been around tools all my life and this is some tool!!!!!!!!!!!!.
The entire system with software , computers, mill, power, vise, cutters..... is pretty high. In contrast I know people that spend much more on a car that just sets outside.
Anyway moving on from blocks to more complex fun stuff

Attachment 221178


Attachment 221180

I know new powerful computers and software makes this much more straight forward compared to just even a few years ago!
I love this mill also!
Learning more every time I use it!

Lane

[Steve Seebold]

Cool looking card holder! bet that fadal could just ram that out in no time.
These days don't know if I would want to pay power bill on such powerful tools yet alone buy one.
I see you live in cal. so I know your electrons are no cheaper.

I agree 100%, I don't have cnc or mill experience but I have been around tools all my life and this is some tool!!!!!!!!!!!!.
The entire system with software , computers, mill, power, vise, cutters..... is pretty high. In contrast I know people that spend much more on a car that just sets outside.
Anyway moving on from blocks to more complex fun stuff

Attachment 221178


Attachment 221180

I know new powerful computers and software makes this much more straight forward compared to just even a few years ago!
I love this mill also!
Learning more every time I use it!

Lane

Lane, If you have any questions or need any help with your machine or the parts you are making, PLEASE don't hesitate to ask. I am a Tormach consultant and I'm here to help.

[mountaindew]

Hi Steve.
Thanks, You have been helping!
I know I will have plenty of questions over the years, Thanks again for offer.
This machine and associated tooling has been nothing short of a joy to use. A little spooky at times because of no experience and not wanting to damage the machine$ and accessories. All things considered, Imho this is a well thought out system. You can see from looking at pictures of older machines how Tormach has looked at and addressed issues or added features that made the machine work and perform better. They designed the system so 1 person could more or less with time and decent skills, set one up with no help. Running conduit and power was just as much work as setting up the mill and installing accessories. In my case I had very few issues with the process and found it to be fun.
Steve don't hesitate pointing out that I am a very happy owner of one!

Thanks again for all the help!
Lane

[nitewatchman]

These days don't know if I would want to pay power bill on such powerful tools yet alone buy one.

Lane

The issue of power consumption has been broached by my wife and our business accountant. They are both insistant that the Tormach 1100 was using a significant amount of electrical power and that since we invoiced about $60,000 across the Tormach last year the power should be expensed against our company SynerTech, LLC. My response was dismissal which really didn't help the issue.

So after a lot of pressure, I agreed to install a "Billable" vampire type passive meter on the machine subpanel.Total cost, "which we can expense", was about $500.00. After puting the meter on line, we ran a half dozen parts and reported the power usage to my wife, the Comptroller. The invoice value of the parts was $62.00 each which is all labor on customer supplied material. After she looked at the number of Kilowatt-Hours used, she said "see I told you it was using a lot of power". I then asked her how much it cost. Not knowing the answer, she got out the electrical bill and took our total usage of KWH divided by the dollars and the multiplied by the average KWH's per part. After muttering and doing this several times, she said that something was wrong with the numbers. Asking her to explain, she said the electrical use was $0.04 each and that could not be correct. I told her that this seemed about right and I haven't heard anymore about expensing electricity from her or the accountant.

Cost $500 to put this to bed, which we will never recover based upon expensing electricity. But the peace in the house is worth it.

nitewatchman

[mountaindew]

The issue of power consumption has been broached by my wife and our business accountant. They are both insistant that the Tormach 1100 was using a significant amount of electrical power and that since we invoiced about $60,000 across the Tormach last year the power should be expensed against our company SynerTech, LLC. My response was dismissal which really didn't help the issue.

So after a lot of pressure, I agreed to install a "Billable" vampire type passive meter on the machine subpanel.Total cost, "which we can expense", was about $500.00. After puting the meter on line, we ran a half dozen parts and reported the power usage to my wife, the Comptroller. The invoice value of the parts was $62.00 each which is all labor on customer supplied material. After she looked at the number of Kilowatt-Hours used, she said "see I told you it was using a lot of power". I then asked her how much it cost. Not knowing the answer, she got out the electrical bill and took our total usage of KWH divided by the dollars and the multiplied by the average KWH's per part. After muttering and doing this several times, she said that something was wrong with the numbers. Asking her to explain, she said the electrical use was $0.04 each and that could not be correct. I told her that this seemed about right and I haven't heard anymore about expensing electricity from her or the accountant.

Cost $500 to put this to bed, which we will never recover based upon expensing electricity. But the peace in the house is worth it.

nitewatchman

HI Nitewatchman!
I'm surprised you did not show the wife and accountant the math before buying a meter device.
I guess for business expense it would help prove the cost to tax people. Anyway the math I bet you know well but I will type out for others.

I think this is correct.

volts x amps = watts 220 x 3 amps = 660 watts (3 amps is a guess need to look at motor to be exact)
watts x hours = total 660x8 hours = 5280 watts
total / 1000 = kwh used 5280 / 1000 = 5.28 kwh used
kwh X cost per = total cost of power to run a motor in this case 5.28 x 0.16 = .84 cents to run the motor for 8 hours.
This is just a 3 amp motor! 600 watts of lights and all kinds of other things add up to about 1.25$ per day for my little garage.

This should give readers a chance to figure their power use anyway!
and yes with taxes fees.... power here is 0.16 a kw
md

[Steve Seebold]

My total electric bill runs about $300.00 per month. We expense off about half of it and have never had a problem with the Internal Robbery Service. I also expense off half of my truck.

When I had my shop, I did about $240,000.00 annually and I could write off the whole power bill, 80% of my truck and ALL of my expendable tooling. Expendable tooling is drills, taps, end mills or any other tooling. Nuts, bolts and dowel pins too.

$240,000.00 annually was getting better all the time. I had one machine paid for and the other one was well on the way. Then what seemed like disaster struck. Now I do about $30,000.00 per year, but I don't want to work that hard any more. I make enough to support my toys and have a little walking around money without having to dip into savings.

[mike sr1]

Attachment 222336

Another small project to help learn cam software and mill operations.
A vise milled out of scrap acrylic.
The design is based on drawings on Dean Williams web site. I modeled each part and run tool paths for each.
I have not found easy ways to flip parts in same program and not make it a little confusing using the g55. No big deal it works, but kind of kludged so far.
I found separate programs for each side of parts a little more natural for me at this point.
Anyway a couple pictures.

Attachment 220748


Attachment 220750


Thanks for Looking
Lane

Lane,
I make some wood pencil boxes out of scrap 2x4 cutoffs, I bet these would look neat machined out of acrylic laminated with different colors?
I can post the code if you are interested, runs about 15 to 20 minutes in wood, not much time involved and are fun to make.....

[mountaindew]

Attachment 222336


Lane,
I make some wood pencil boxes out of scrap 2x4 cutoffs, I bet these would look neat machined out of acrylic laminated with different colors?
I can post the code if you are interested, runs about 15 to 20 minutes in wood, not much time involved and are fun to make.....

Hey mike, those look like fun!
Few more pictures please? or rough drawing and or description! that way I can get more experience drawing and running cam software tool paths and setups.

Code would work also, just need to modify the feed and speed for the type plastic I cut.
Cast acrylic machines easy and results using new material "not scrap" are spectacular.
On the other hand I have a bunch of extruded acrylic I am using up and that stuff machines different depending on if your watching or you take your eyes off it or back is turned.

Also I can post my models for stuff I build if anyone wants!

Thanks for Ideas and help
Lane

[mike sr1]

Lane,
I use Rhino for the drawings, Sprutcam 7 for cam, I could send .igs files from Rhino or whatever works in your cad program for the drawings, it is just a simple pocket drawn to fit a 2x4. The boxes are 8 or 12 inches long, 1.5" tall and 3.25" wide. I have .stc files for Sprutcam for this project as well, let me know what you need for importing. Let me know the file types you need.


In wood it dulls HSS cutters pretty fast, I just got a new carbide .5 long endmill from ebay, will see how that one lasts. I do these when the weather is not so good to kill some time and then give them away to neighbors and friends, keeps the old guy busy ha!