[FineLineAuto]

Today I finalized the order for:

- Torus Pro Servo Edition
- the upgraded stand
- power draw bar
- the built in control computer

Should be shipping in 2 weeks. Here are the answers to a few questions I had, just in case anyone else is looking:

- the minimum distance from spindle to table is 120mm.

- the spacing between T-slots on the table is 2.4".

- The electrical requirement is a 20A 220V single phase breaker. The end is just a bare end so you can either put a connector on it or run it right into a junction box. Also found out that the mill will function properly on the older style 220 wiring using 3 conductors (the neutral and ground are tied together). I will be putting a 20A 4 prong connector on so I can plug it right into my outlet.

- you can use a TC style tap with the mill out of the box, but the resistor breaking upgrade ($89) is recommended. I didn't get the upgrade and will be doing tapping as a secondary op on the pneumatic tapping arm we have.



Nate
Fine Line Automation
Home - Fine Line Automation

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Congratulations!

Just to be clear.... If you're in the US, you'll need a "ganged" 220V breaker - BOTH Black wires must be connected to the breaker. Using a 4-prong receptacle is find, but only the two 220V "Hot" wires and the Green GROUND should be wired to the machine. There is nothing in the machine that uses 110V, so there is nowhere to even connect a neutral wire. Connecting the neutral to the machine Ground will CREATE a safety hazard.

The machine comes with a power plug (the receptacle is built into the machine), but no cord. So in your case you'll need only the 3-wire cable to which you'll add the included plug on one end, and the mating plug for whatever wall receptacle you choose for the other end.

Regards,
Ray L.

[Novakon]

One noted correction....

ALL mills are delivered now with a 12 foot SO14-3 power cord installed. We moved away from the plug since it was a pain to wire the power cord into the limited space of the female receptacle. The new power cord is mounted through the lower electrical cabinet via a clamping connector and should make things much easier to connect to your power source. If by chance you may need more than 12 feet of power cord, replacing it with a longer cord is a snap. All you need are two- female 1/4" x .032 spade terminals and a ring terminal for the ground.

Regards,
Novakon Team

See the Pulsar cabinet below for reference. The Torus PRO and Pulsar are the same for the power distribution.

[FineLineAuto]

Thanks for the noted correction.

Went about ordering some tooling yesterday:

- 10 of Darkon Industries ER32 TTS holders with collets and the spanner wrench.
- the Pro Tram System for Edge Technologies (I've used it in the past and it's much faster and easier than chucking up an indicator).

Still to order from Tormach:

- 8 TTS drill chucks
- Super Fly Cutter w/ inserts
- TTS diamond drag bit
- TTS Compact tool tightening station
- TTS R8 adapter collet (Ray, Will be adequate for your ATC?)

Still to order from elsewhere:

- the wild horse probe. There site says out of stock. Going to call.

Still need to figure out:

- vise: leaning toward the Shar's 6" vice. Thoughts or suggestions?
- fixturing: still don't know what I am doing here. I know I am getting a fixture plate. I know that the top of the base plate needs to be 2" above the table so I don't run into the minimum machine requirements. I might swallow hard and buy a ready made plate because at this point my time is more valuable than savings by making one.
- enclosure: when I get the mill in, I will be ordered 8020 and doing a chloroplast and plycarbonate enclosure.

Anything else I am missing?



Nate
Fine Line Automation
www.finelineautomation.com

[sagreen]

Still need to figure out:

- vise: leaning toward the Shar's 6" vice. Thoughts or suggestions?
- fixturing: still don't know what I am doing here. I know I am getting a fixture plate. I know that the top of the base plate needs to be 2" above the table so I don't run into the minimum machine requirements. I might swallow hard and buy a ready made plate because at this point my time is more valuable than savings by making one.
- enclosure: when I get the mill in, I will be ordered 8020 and doing a chloroplast and plycarbonate enclosure.

Anything else I am missing?



Nate
Fine Line Automation
Home - Fine Line Automation

Nate,

I bought 2 of these vices SHARS 6 670V CNC Milling Vise 0004 D675 | eBay and love them. They will open just past 8" so you can get really wide material in them. I would totally buy them again!

Scott...

[FineLineAuto]

Nate,

I bought 2 of these vices SHARS 6 670V CNC Milling Vise 0004 D675 | eBay and love them. They will open just past 8" so you can get really wide material in them. I would totally buy them again!

Scott...

Scott,

I think that is an older version of this vise: http://www.shars.com/products/view/8...Vise_00004quot I was looking at that one. I would rather get it from Shars directly, especially if it's a tad cheaper. Do you know what the difference is?


Nate
Fine Line Automation
www.finelineautomation.com

[LeeWay]

Shars is generally more expensive than what they offer on Ebay. Sometimes the difference is considerable for the very same items.

[amish_rabbi]

thank you for the pro tram, im going to order me up one of those.

I also need a wild horse probe, waiting for it to be in stock on the site again

[FineLineAuto]

thank you for the pro tram, im going to order me up one of those.

I also need a wild horse probe, waiting for it to be in stock on the site again

I think you'll love the pro tram. I am frankly surprised units like that aren't more popular.

I got ahold of the guys at Wildhorse innovations. The probes are about 10 days from being in stock. I asked about pre-ordering and he set me up with a order for one of the next batch in the system.

Ordered the TTS tooling from Tormach. Anxious to see how the Superfly Cutter performs.


I bit the bullet and ended up purchasing a tooling plate from Tosa Tools, even though the frugal side of me was screaming at myself. In the end, the following factors made me decide:

1) when I factored in the cost of my time to design the system, make a plate, and design the first fixtures it wasn't too much more. Also, at this point my time is more valuable to me.

2) Dan is taking care of everything in terms of fitting the plate to the machine. He's making a set of 1.5" tall Blanchard ground riser blocks from 4140 to raise the plate up. He called Novakon to get the information needed for spacing and overhang of the mounting bolts. I literally won't have to do a thing.

3) Dan is helping me with the first fixture plate designs. I have 3 main families of products with different fixture requirements and he's helping me through one of each so I can get a feel for it.

4) I get the Solidworks Model of the plate from Dan as well. This was another time saver because I would end of modeling it anyway.

Going to download and install HSMXpress this weekend and play around with it.



Nate
Fine Line Automation
www.finelineautomation.com

[Hirudin]

Cool! I've been eyeing those tooling plates for a while now. I'll have to give them a call next week.

[CROSSHATCH]

Nate,

Glad you ended up buying the machine! Again, I hope I was helpful in showing off the Torus just to get your brain going.


If you remember, I ran a double-lock vise parallel with my X; I'm able to setup work-holding through soft jaws operations and in the next week...a large plate for a mold.

According to your last post, you are already being taken care of when it comes to the fixture plate. Do you plan, or did you ever plan to leave just the plate and remove for when you need vise work to be done? Potentially food for thought; my idea was to always leave my 24 inch vise on and create tooling plates with dowels that can mount on the vise repeatably. Only time will tell how well it works out but the idea is there. I myself will look into the tooling plates you ordered just for potential future use.

Thanks and good luck with anything, if you ever need to give a shout...you know where I am.

-Jason

[FineLineAuto]

Nate,

Glad you ended up buying the machine! Again, I hope I was helpful in showing off the Torus just to get your brain going.


If you remember, I ran a double-lock vise parallel with my X; I'm able to setup work-holding through soft jaws operations and in the next week...a large plate for a mold.

According to your last post, you are already being taken care of when it comes to the fixture plate. Do you plan, or did you ever plan to leave just the plate and remove for when you need vise work to be done? Potentially food for thought; my idea was to always leave my 24 inch vise on and create tooling plates with dowels that can mount on the vise repeatably. Only time will tell how well it works out but the idea is there. I myself will look into the tooling plates you ordered just for potential future use.

Thanks and good luck with anything, if you ever need to give a shout...you know where I am.

-Jason

Jason,

I made a decision and am going to go with one of the Tormach 5" machinist vices. I have a sub plate for it so once I tram it initially I can remove and re-install it without issue. I think this is the best approach because I can always add more vises inline if need be. I like the setup you had but I am looking at clamping long parts between 2 vices and would prefer that setup. I also gave consideration to just how heavy the vise is because of how often I will be moving it.

Thanks for all the help so far!


Update: got word today that the upgraded Torus Pro stands are delayed. Not sure how long it will be. Khai has told me they will ship the unit with the regular stand and then ship the upgraded stand at no additional cost when it comes in, so I'll essentially have 2 stands for the price of one.

Can anyone tell me the thread size of the leveling feet mounting stud? I am going to be drawing up an adapter plate for the leveling casters that will screw directly into the existing mounting plate.




Nate
Fine Line Automation
www.finelineautomation.com

[LeeWay]

Don't quote as gospel, But I think the Torus used 10mm leveling pads. Looking forward to seeing the final tooling setup with the plate.

[FineLineAuto]

Things are moving along. Got my TTS order from Tormach yesterday. I found out something interesting that made me rethink my TTS tooling and my use of drill chucks. ER collets in metric sizes will apparently clamp a 1mm range of shafts. A 4mm collet will fit a shaft sizes between 3 and 4mm. Because of this, it was suggested to put drill bits in a ER holder with the appropriate metric collet instead of a drill chuck. The advantage is better balance and less run out. Curious if anyone is doing this and how much better it works versus drill chucks?

Got the leveling casters ordered. Went with the 1,000 lb casters w/ the 2.5" wheels. Still waiting on John to get me a thread size on the mount stud. I am modeling with Leeway's suggested 10mm size for now.

Made a final decision on the motion control board. We are going to put a UC100 between the computer and parallel port breakout board. We have had really good luck with it and will be reselling it so we might as well use it. I've seen the variance in feedrate drop to less than 1% with the board. We would often see 5-10% variance using the parallel port.

Downloaded HSMXpress. Got a chance to play with it and it is world's apart and so much better from the SW to Aspire workflow I was using before. Not knocking Aspire, just saying the integration alone is worth
It. I have tried exporting to GCode yet. Anyone know if a Mach3 post processor is included or where I can get one?


Nate
Fine Line Automation
www.finelineautomation.com

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Nate,

I've been using ER collets for holding drills for ages. I rarely use drill chucks.

There is a Mach2/Mach3 POST included in HSMXpress, you just have to select it in the POST dialog.

Regards,
Ray L.

[Bubba]

Things are moving along. Got my TTS order from Tormach yesterday. I found out something interesting that made me rethink my TTS tooling and my use of drill chucks. ER collets in metric sizes will apparently clamp a 1mm range of shafts. A 4mm collet will fit a shaft sizes between 3 and 4mm. Because of this, it was suggested to put drill bits in a ER holder with the appropriate metric collet instead of a drill chuck. The advantage is better balance and less run out. Curious if anyone is doing this and how much better it works versus drill chucks?

Been doing that for a long time. In my case, I have a RF31 so the use of the collets means less tool overhang. I also feel there is better rigidity and less runout as everything is more compact.

[FineLineAuto]

Thanks for the quick responses. Definitely ordering some ER20 tool holders here shortly.


Nate
Fine Line Automation
www.finelineautomation.com

[LeeWay]

Most of my drills are ER Collet type. I do have one that is in a chuck. It is my longest tool. That bit will soon get and ER collet as well. Then the chuck will do special standby duty for odd drill sizes.

[FineLineAuto]

I think that even the oddball size drills can fit in the metric collars. I am definitely going to be returning most of the drill chucks I got.

On another note, the mounting holes for the leveling feet are 26mm through holes. I will be using 1" diameter hex bolts to attach the adapter plates directly to the mount point.




Nate
Fine Line Automation
www.finelineautomation.com

[LeeWay]

Definitely bigger than the Torus.