[CadRhino]

Neat devise.
Sounds like you have found a nice niche for yourself.
What Machines do you have?

I do a lot of different work with my tormach machines. Fortunately I have clients in the global food and beverage world (everyone has to eat). They seem to always be breaking things, wanting production equipment that is more robust, or simply in need of new QC testing and/or R&D equipment. I am usually involved in front end innovation projects dealing with packaging and new processing strategies so it keeps my days interesting to say the least. Here is a fun prototype sample cutter that I was inspired by the French Revolution to produce for the client. Ahh what great days of enlightenment from the past :-). The blades are Grade 5 Titanium (carbidized chisel edge) and the rest is 316 SS so it should last for a while as it gets lost and kicked around in a manufacturing environment. So far I am pretty impressed with the consistency of the cut for such a crude device. Three of us whacked 180 slices of various produce and pickles to QC it. The data only varied by .07 mm from thickest to thinnest..the measurement error was the largest component of the variation LOL. I will undoubtedly have to etch the "DON'T CUT OFF YOUR DAMN FINGERS WHILE USING THIS EQUIPMENT-IDIOT" warning in 3 places to satisfy the no common sense squad before I hand it over though. I also make custom knives and shooting targets during slow periods...probably going to start doing more of that this spring because it is just good therapy.

[pickled]

Thanks. It was fun to make something just simple and crude yet effective. No controls to integrate or lengthy manuals to develop :-). Yeah as far as the niche I reside in goes- it kind of found me. I started working in a food manufacturing facility about 20 years ago. At the time I was getting ready to attend grad school and needed beer and tuition $. Things evolved from very meager beginnings with stints at various companies across the country that further evolved into lucrative consulting opportunities. Now I am getting tired and highly selective in what I chose to take on. If there isn't a small element of "yeah that's cool, challenging, fun or provides an opportunity to grow expertise/services with minimal risk" I don't take the project on. As far as relevant machinery is concerned currently a PCNC 1100 Series 2 (about 6 years old now) and a PCNC 770 (a couple of years old) are in the stable. The duality lathe is here too and it holds down a wooden box of cheap Chinese 5C collets very effectively. Sometime within the next 12-18 months I'll probably pick up the Slant Bed because I believe it will allow for some additional design freedoms and efficiency improvements.

[EZfab]

The ATC makes the tool-measuring process more automated, but a tool-setter could be used to measure a single tool just as easily as a whole changer full.

It's an expensive convenience that replaces a height gauge and surface plate.

In my humble opinion, there can never be a reason to replace a surface plate and height gauge!! In my 25 years in a machine shop, the one tool I have used most, and every single day is my 24"x36" steel surface plate. The height gauge is a close 2nd!

[tmarks11]

In my humble opinion, there can never be a reason to replace a surface plate and height gauge!!

There is no question that a surface plate is a must-have for setup and measurements. A height gauge and a cylindrical square also is on that list.

But you are ignoring the context of Hirudin's statement. He is saying that he no longer uses the surface plate/height gauge for offline tool offset measurement. Which I suspect is not one of the uses of a surface plate that you were picturing.

I also find it takes much longer to do it offline on the surface plate vs. in the spindle, and have doubts that it is much more accurate.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

I also find it takes much longer to do it offline on the surface plate vs. in the spindle, and have doubts that it is much more accurate.

I keep reading that, and keep being confused.... Setting tool length using a surface plate and height gauge takes maybe 10 seconds per tool, if I'm moving slowly - Drop the tool in the hole, lower the height gauge, look at measurement, type into computer, remove tool. It takes that long just to put a single tool into the spindle. What am I missing? I can do all the tools for a typical job in barely a minute.

Regards,
Ray L.

[WOTDesigns]

I keep reading that, and keep being confused.... Setting tool length using a surface plate and height gauge takes maybe 10 seconds per tool, if I'm moving slowly - Drop the tool in the hole, lower the height gauge, look at measurement, type into computer, remove tool. It takes that long just to put a single tool into the spindle. What am I missing? I can do all the tools for a typical job in barely a minute.

Regards,
Ray L.

A pneumatic power draw bar?

It doesn't take any longer to change the tool in the Tormach spindle than to change it on your surface plate. I'm personally not a fan of typing offsets as it gives me a chance to make a tool destroying mistake. Those damn dots can be slippery sometimes. I would say 10-15 seconds is about what it takes me to touch them off in Mach3 on the machine. I don't think there is a time savings either way. Taking one less bathroom break per month would probably make up for the difference even if one is faster than the other.

It is purely preference.

[EZfab]

There is no question that a surface plate is a must-have for setup and measurements. A height gauge and a cylindrical square also is on that list.

But you are ignoring the context of Hirudin's statement. He is saying that he no longer uses the surface plate/height gauge for offline tool offset measurement. Which I suspect is not one of the uses of a surface plate that you were picturing.

I also find it takes much longer to do it offline on the surface plate vs. in the spindle, and have doubts that it is much more accurate.

I guess I misread a little, When he said "replace" I took it a little too literally.

I also agree with Ray on the time it takes to measure a tool. I also like the manual input because it forces me to stay focused at the machine and double check everything I enter. It's so easy to become complacent when we do things so often. I also like measuring on a surface plate simply because it saves a ton of wear and tear on a power draw bar, ATC and.. even my compressor. Hell, it even saves electricity!

[tmarks11]

What am I missing? I can do all the tools for a typical job in barely a minute.

You have a better height gauge then I do. Some day I need to shell out a few hundred more for a digital gauge.

[adamvs]

This thread just popped up to the top today. It's a great thread, full of good ideas. I'm a retired software engineer, but did machining for the Exploritorium in SF when they opened back in the early 70's. When I got out of school I took a job in a job shop in west Berkeley and always enjoyed the process, specially automated tools. When you got'em humming it was a thing of beauty. For three or four years now, I've been making bits for the vintage racing guys. These are typically F1 and CanAM cars for the 60's through 80's. For example, one client, who maintains these cars, has a simple business philosophy: he likes his cars to win. It gives the car owners something to brag about, and it makes him look good. So these cars really do get raced, not just putted around. That said a lot of these legacy parts wear out, and as they were pretty much hand made to begin with, you can't just go to Summit Racing and find them. I'll do batches of three to maybe 15 parts so there are some spares around. I keep my prices very competative, and the quality high. I think they like the fact there a local guy, who does good work, understands the engineering, delivers, and doesn't charge an arm and a leg. Lately, I have quite a backlog, which is good! The stuff, I've been charged with making has been challenging - often requires some creative fixturing. My son had an idea for doing some custom knife handles, which I think would work well on a Tormach. What ever people are into, they love to 'mod' it. And if you can come up with some cool designs, I think there's a market.

[CNC-Dude]

Tormach has been writing a lot of blog postings lately and in one of them they touch on how good these machines have been for some small businesses to make money. They mentioned the company Indivijuals who sells custom made glasses. They sell for $700 a pop. They also mention Artisan Dice and how they manage to produce something like $700K a year in sales.

The glasses made me go, "WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT!!!? I am blown away by the fact that people are still buying dices, though. Considering it was more than 30 years ago that I played Dungeons and Dragons with my buddies, I would have thought by now every geek would have way much more dices than they can possibly need. Clearly that is no the case...

Apparently the world is so large, it really doesn't matter what we do, there should be plenty of people out there to buy what we have to offer.

I think my problem will always be that I don't NEED to make money with my machine. Since I have a day job which feeds my family well, I can goof off during my spare time and there are no dire consequences. Since the reason to make money is so that I can buy more tools, it is not the end of the world if I don't.

In other words, the individuals making money with their machine, are most likely EATING thanks to their machine. If that machine stops, there will be hunger.

I think what I have to do is keep me well trained on the latest and how to use the machine and maybe some day the need will arise. In which case it is not that I will get inspiration to make something, but that HUNGER will beat me to death and I'll have to make whatever it is that puts a McDonalds combo on the table ;-)

[Spiffy Lab]

I have a few modestly successful Kickstarter projects. My last project funded at $33,256 (Tactical Marker) and another $5,000 and counting since the project ended a month ago, which is great but also represents a lot of work.
I'll be buying a PCNC 770 with part of the funds. For me, the advantage of a Tormach or any piece of equipment is that I can save a TON of money on prototyping. My first Kickstarter project failed but it still cost me almost over $2,000 to have someone else make the prototype. Not to mention, having to rely on someone else's schedule.
I usually will have an outside shop do the production but I keep some of the work as second-operations, some times. With a Tormach, I may keep more of the work in-house.

Each piece of equipment I buy means that my next product and projects can launch faster, better and just the way I want them. I can go through as many iterations as I want.

Kickstarter doesn't hide any their "failure" rates. In fact, Kickstarter slices and dices the data and makes all the data available to anyone to see what categories, time of launch, etc. have the best success and/or failure rates.

For me, Kickstarter is a great market research tool. If it does well on Kickstarter, then the odds are, it will do well post-Kickstarter as well. Also, Kickstarter is great for exposure. One of my projects, the "Counter+Balance Pen', did ok on Kickstarter but got picked up by a national distributor because they saw it on Kickstarter. There is no way I can get that many eyes on my website, as eyes that see Kickstarter.

I think Artisan Dice, mentioned in another post, got their start on Kickstarter.

In the end, it would be great to take Kickstarter out of the loop, as those fees do add up. Hopefully, each piece of equipment I buy will get me closer to more and better things to market.

For those that choose to be self-employed with a Tormach, right on! The love/hate of being self-employed is off the charts. I do a get kick out of knowing that people want to buy something that I thought of and created.

[tmarks11]

I have a few modestly successful Kickstarter projects. My last project funded at $33,256 (Tactical Marker) and another $5,000 and counting since the project ended a month ago, which is great but also represents a lot of work.

That is pretty cool. But it seems like you should be buying a lathe as well (or do you already have one?). The tactical marker represents about 95% turning work instead of mill work, although you could do it on a 4th axis, it is really a lathe job. You could have run the prototype for the tactical marker on a manual lathe (no complex geometry), although a cnc lathe would definitely be nice for production.

EDIT: looking at the rest of the kickstarter and your homepage, looks like you did make it on a G0602 lathe. Nice job with the knurling. It turned out very well.

Another thought is you could probably find some help here on the zone to get prototyping work done in the RFQ section.

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/rfq-request-for-quote-/

[TurboStep]

You have a better height gauge then I do. Some day I need to shell out a few hundred more for a digital gauge.

I have the Tormach 8" Digital height gauge with USB interface and I find it very fast, but not as convenient as it could be because of the lack of integration with Mach3 (I think this will have improved with PathPilot but I haven't tried it yet). For anyone who hasn't seen the USB device, simply pressing the button on the interface transfers the value automatically into the tool table. My gauge was initially delivered without the interface so I started using it manually and I did get it wrong once so I definitely prefer to use the automatic alternative!
The major issue I have with it is accuracy. It's not a $5000 gauge and tools of similar lengths to the reference tool (or Haimer) probably measure out ok but I find it doesn't cope too well over a larger range of tool lengths, say from the short superfly up to a long 3/8" end mill in an ER20 holder.
I've been considering purchasing the Electronic Tool Setter for a while but the price is still holding me back. The specified repeatability is excellent and accuracy of the Tormach P4 Ballscrews and the resolution of the steppers are both much better than that of the gauge, so I think this combination looks pretty good. Maybe one day...
Step

[CNC-Dude]

Thanks for sharing your cool stories, Adamvs and Spiffy Lab. Very refreshing to read successful CNCing tales of awesomeness!

I am curious, though, Spiffy Lab. Where exactly can I get this kickstarter sliced up data? Sounds like an asset I would like to immerse my eyes upon.

When I said earlier that Kickstarted hides its data it was based on an article I read years ago, shortly before I started the only campaign I ever ran. Maybe it was true back then, but if it is available now, then great!

[Spiffy Lab]

tmarks11, thanks for the kind words. Yes, I do have a lathe. Not the best but I make no apologies for it I do hope to step up my game with a Tormach. I also have a manual mill but a CNC can do so much more...faster. I'd like to get a Hardinge as there're not to spendy around Minneapolis.
Just for prototypes alone, I've more than paid for the lathe and manual mill many times over. The RFQ section here is great, but I really like being able to make a prototype, then change and improve on it an hour later.

I used to be machinist in my waaaay younger days, back in the mid to late 80's. I became a computer programmer from the 90's to just recently, then a few years ago, I became intrigued by making stuff again. After storing much of my tooling and rolling my Kennedy boxes from place to place, it's kinda cool that I get to use the tools again after all these years.

I think if you look in Kickstarter's Blog page, they link to quarter and year-end stats. They break things down pretty far.

[tmarks11]

The RFQ section here is great

You ever end up using it for your last kick starters, or did you end up using local shops for production?

[adamvs]

I have the Tormach 8" Digital height gauge with USB interface and I find it very fast..
I've been considering purchasing the Electronic Tool Setter for a while but the price is still holding me back.
Step

Not to obliterate this thread anymore, but: Just get an cheapo electronic tool setter. Put Path Pilot on Tool 0, jog the empty spindle down on the tool setter until the light goes on. Set 'Z' at zero. Put a tool in the spindle, bring it down on the tool setter, copy and paste the 'Z' DRO value into the tool table. Done!

[kstrauss]

Not to obliterate this thread anymore, but: Just get an cheapo electronic tool setter. Put Path Pilot on Tool 0, jog the empty spindle down on the tool setter until the light goes on. Set 'Z' at zero. Put a tool in the spindle, bring it down on the tool setter, copy and paste the 'Z' DRO value into the tool table. Done!

Can this be automated? It seems like a perfect example of a useful wizard! Which tool setter did you get? Any comments on its cost and accuracy/repeatability? Is it coolant proof?

[Spiffy Lab]

I reached out to the RFQ section for one of my first projects. I found a in-state guy for the latest project turning.

[adamvs]

Can this be automated? It seems like a perfect example of a useful wizard! Which tool setter did you get? Any comments on its cost and accuracy/repeatability? Is it coolant proof?

This would make a good wizard, it only needs one button: 'Set'. When you hit that, it copies the Z DRO value into the selected tool on the tool table. I got mine on ebay. I forget the mfgr, and there is nothing on the wooden box. But it's a simple 'contact' type, ie, the LED lights up when tool touches the contact pad - not coolant proof per say, except it's so simple i doubt a little coolant would hurt it. Mine was 50mm height, but it's 50mm-ish. Main thing is the contact pad is carbide and is spring loaded so it will depress if you jog down too much.