Let's make some stuff with my new CNC machine

[Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] you know maybe machining aluminum toilet paper isn't the best business idea so more than 2,000 pounds of crates just showed up in my driveway inside of them is a fancy new mill now if you're anything like my wife you're gonna ask me how many Mills do you need don't you already have two and the answer to that question is really simple it's always one more but that's just just how it is having a bigger CNC that takes less babysitting has now become one of my biggest limiters I hope with this new addition the team I'll be making both more things and bigger things and things I couldn't make otherwise faster and the new machine it's a tormach 1,100 MX all right all right I can already feel the machinists out there shriveling up into a raisin at the mere mention of a tormach you want to ask me why didn't I get a Hoss and answer honestly was already made for me there's literally no way to get a Hoss in my basement there's at least one way I guess a good friend of mine has this quote that I love which is that with enough force you can fit anything into anything which is true with enough force I could get a hosta in my basement but that doesn't count the Hoss in the basement have to be attacked for it to count so it's not possible moving pieces of heavy equipment is always really nerve-racking for me in particular because I have to get the Machine down a huge hill to get it into my basement and that huge Hill continues down for a couple more hundred feet I can just see in my mind the middle tumbling down the hill shedding parts as it picks up speed after it already squashed me down into the mud and compounding the situation here is that I have to do a solo given the hole coronavirus situation thankfully this is my first time doing this type of thing and I sort of have it down to a routine at this point the only thing that wasn't routine is that for some reason the tour Mack doesn't come on a pallet comes with these two skids and there's no way to get a pallet jack under it without it tipping and so I had to jack it up onto these precarious stilts to get a pallet under it the hill that I have to go down is pretty steep it's around 10 to 12 degrees so one of the things I wanted to do initially is back the machine down the hill on a trailer but doing the math there's actually a risk that my SUV wouldn't have enough action and the trailer doesn't have brakes I don't have great numbers on the coefficient of friction for grass based on the numbers I could find it's close enough that I don't want to risk it I just imagine my mill in the car going down the hill together yes that'd be bad I'm okay using the car as an anchor since there's no 2,000 pound trailer involved and it should be fine then I have to get up a few stairs there's a ramp that I built that I used all the time this is an amazing addition I have a gas-powered wagon that I built which I use to haul stuff in and out of the shop it's great because with the durant i can just drive right into the shop i might do a video on that someday it's a pretty cool little vehicle it has tons of torque it has more torque than my SUV at least in theory it would just twist the wheels off before i was able to realize any of that torque for some reason one of the hardest parts for me is getting the equipment over the threshold into the shop i usually spend half an hour to an hour just trying to do this it just never wants to go over so they say for these machines some assembly required they come in pieces but the fact that the user manual is a three-ring binder that's totally full should give you a hint that it's a lot of assembly required this assemble ability is both a good thing and a bad thing it's great because you can get the machine in two places that you just couldn't otherwise but it's bad because you have to spend a lot of time building the machine the machine comes in a series of crates and the first thing I do is spend a lot of time getting everything out of the crates and this is hard because a lot of stuff is pretty heavy these crates are an unbelievable feat of Engineering they come apart with just a few hammer blows I have no idea how they don't fall apart Midway to the destination they're kind of like the soda can of the transportation world hyper optimized and works way better than you think it should talk about a facepalm not even five minutes into assembly I managed to put this huge scratch square in the center of the stand don't ask how although it did have something to do with this bolt I encountered my first strange quality issue the leveling feet for the mill are assembled as one and just painted so there's a big steel area that's not painted and even a little bit strange at the bottom of the leveler is rubber and they just painted the whole thing so that's kind of weird the linear axes are driven by clear path servos which are really nice I've used them in the past and I'm actually surprised that are using them here because they're very I really think you should be able to get a similar performance servomotor in China for a whole lot less and they're making in China so why not the next quality issue area and into was pretty severe over painting where the y axis motor mounts it's pretty easy to deal with but it's a bit concerning because the coupling is totally rigid and this could lead to premature wear or even motor death and in the worst case the control cabinet is nice and clean there's lots of room for expansion and it is embarrassing how much nicer this is that my cnc control panels I don't know why this is so hard for me I just always get a box that's three times smaller than it should be lifting the machine onto the stand is one of the most nerve-wracking parts for me I'm super aware of how much potential energy is in this thing and all I can think about is how terrible it would be if it came crashing down onto the ground and with my luck it would pile on my foot so I was really happy when I finally got it onto the stand I ran into a pretty funny circular dependency when I went to put the operator console on so in order to install the operator console you have to have the enclosure on first because it mounts on it and in order to install the automatic tool changer you have to have the operator console first because you needed to control it but the automatic tool changer must be installed before the enclosure because there's no space to install it after the enclosures on so what the heck am I supposed to do I ended up just going with my instincts and put everything on the ground which worked the operator console is really nice nicer than I was expecting the dedicated knobs for feeds and speeds and the feed hold and cycle start buttons are great and having a jog pendant is a life changer I have this on my neither CNC and I don't think I could live without it turning the machine on was uneventful although it's always terrifying to flip that switch just in case something goes terribly wrong the first thing they have you do is a bunch of unit tests to make sure that everything works and of course the first unit test I did was make it go as fast as it can and I was only getting Twitter inches per minute it should go 300 so I need to see what's up with that this coolant tank is gigantic at least compared to my other CNC machines and it seems to be really well designed having built multiple coolant systems that leak like a sieve you might say I'm something of an expert in coolant system design at least what doesn't work in any case I'm really excited to have what seems to be a bulletproof quant system and machine the nozzle system on this is awesome there's three independently controllable nozzles that actually produce jets of coolant this is a major upgrade over the previous generation which had basically what you would call a drip coolant system it also looks really cool I am super excited to get this thing moving so here's a pretty annoying design flaw that I fought with for probably an hour the coolant stand rolls into the base and it bolts to it with two large screws and it's on wheels and the base is level Bowl so if you level the base the holes for the screws cannot line up I don't know why these aren't slots or even better yet a latch my guess is that they rush this in at the last second and didn't properly validate it and now it doesn't work I was super excited to install the automatic tool changer this is something that I've been wanting to build for my other mill for years and I just haven't gotten around to it it's pretty crazy it has something like ten degrees of freedom that you have to adjust to get everything line up between all the different actuators and the way that they have you do this is actually pretty good I really like this eccentric cam on these standoffs it gives a super controlled way to control front to back tilt I was really excited to see that they had injection mold of the forks for the tool holders and the tool changer I think this might be tore mocks first injection molded part I can't think of any others if so way to go tormach the recommended way to do all the alignments is with the precision rod and a tool holder and I found this not to work so well mainly because the tool holder had some play in the tool changer and the rod amplified this so it wasn't very accurate I ended up using just a precision level and this worked really well I would actually recommend doing it this way over the rod method if you have a level once the tool changer is dialed in it is awesome it massively upgrades the ability for this machine to be a robot that just makes parts for me with me doing the absolute minimum amount of work possible the final and most complicated part of the assembly is installing the enclosure it is amazing how many parts they fit into this little tiny crate it felt like a clown car and overall I went together pretty smoothly I was pretty impressed actually given the sheer number and complexity of the parts involved there were only a couple of times where I had to really push to get holes to line up which was good and overall it looks like this thing is going to keep the coolant in it is a dramatic upgrade over the enclosure for their previous generation mills as far as I can tell it looks like they really put the time and effort into making legitimately good enclosure and as far as I can tell they succeeded this thing is really nice I don't have any footage of installing the operator console but it's a lot more of the same and so you didn't miss anything and that basically completes it I had to get the vise in there and I did after machinae a small amount for the tool height setter and then the last thing I did is I tested the coolant system just to make sure it was gonna leak like a sieve when I was midway through going to town on some big part so the tormach is a machine that removes all the material that isn't here part which is very different than 3d printing where you add all the material that is your part to remove all of the material that is in your part you use a variety of tools each one goes into some kind of holder this is a bt 30 holder which is what the tormach uses it's actually pretty hard to manage all these tools just making a simple part might have five or six tools and don't want to leave them on the table because they'll roll off and do all kinds of stuff you don't want so in preparation for getting the tormach I designed and printed a bunch of these tool holder inserts the idea was that I could plasma cut some kind of sheet and then screw a bunch of these into it and then the tool holders will go into the tool holder holder I just got a tormach why am i making this one herb cent 3d printed plasma cut they are the right tools for the job in my opinion but I just got a tormach I have this piece of aluminum that it looks like I just pulled out of the bottom of a lake but anyway within this part there's a tool holder hiding and we just have to remove everything that is in the tool holder it'll have a tool holder so this is the first part I'm gonna machine on the tormach I thought this would be interesting to look at actually before we get into the machining I have all the tools that I need in there holders and I think this very clearly illustrates why a toe holding rack is so important this is not that complicated of a part and I have lots of other tools [Music] [Music] all right that looks significantly better see how they fit oh yeah that's great here's my CNC tool holder holder versus the plastic one the real question is who were it better you be the judge this this tool holder turned out pretty well there's definitely some tool path being issues I didn't notice until after I had the part cut out on the tabs that the top facing operation left two cusps on the end and so I went back and rear an it and it shattered like crazy as expected because the part sitting on little tabs is basically a an amazing tuned spring system he fit with the tool is really good not a bad result for a rushed first attempt but left ever less rushed more refined attempt number two [Music] [Laughter] so the second one with the optimized cycle turned out way better although unfortunately the stock I was using had this hole in it I thought I had avoided but turns out I didn't that's not the fault of the mill that is definitely my fault the sheet metal is really thin if I just had this piece of sheet metal it would definitely bend down but with all the way to the toilers the reason it's so thin is I'm going for that made in China Harbor Freight aesthetic where everything is as absolutely thin as is humanly possible because sheet metal is expensive and I don't I don't want to waste it and make things out of plates so I've got some some ribs I need to bend up which I'll spot weld on here to make it differ it's got some legs and as always the pen plotter on the plasma cutter is amazing I can mark out on my bed lines and it's gonna be really easy to bend [Music] all the parts of the tool holder are now bent and so to continue to make my life easy I'm gonna just spot weld it all together rather than trying to take it a few spots can make everything nice and strong and holds together and that's all I need and it only takes a few seconds so the spot Walter hey this video is getting pretty long so you should pick up the pace okay that took all of five minutes so I skated some rib nuts in there you haven't seen my other videos I'm a huge fan of rib nuts they're basically nuts for screws that rivet in so that they're captive forever I think I really nailed the Harbor Freight to last etic it feels like there's nothing here yet it's stiff and should do the job except ibly these have a little key on them so they key into the slots and the right orientation although before I do the final assembly with all tool holders I'm gonna give it a quick coat of paint this thing really cleaned up nicely with the coat of paint I'm actually really glad I have two aluminum ones because it just wouldn't look right with only one like a glove overall I'd say it looks great the tools fit really well they're not rolling all off my bench they're held at this.oh so convenient angle and this paint job really isn't the best they say you're supposed to wipe it down with a lint-free cloth but the cloth that I was using was basically made of lint it's one of the cheapest packs of shop towels you can buy here it is in its final resting place and this thing is really awesome there's a couple other things that I wanted to try with this machine the first one is they claim that you can rigid tap which is spectacular if true people on the internet say it is and rigid tapping is truly magical the machine basically perfectly synchronized the motion of the z-axis to the spinning of the spindle such that it just screws the tap in your material this is amazing because it has to be perfectly synchronized if there's any speed mismatch the tap will instantly break so I have this conspiracy theory that they purposefully make taps out of inferior quality metal so that they'll break more I think they must be teamed up with the same guys in the light bulb oligarchy I mean come on shouldn't I be able to put my full body weight into a number-two tap without breaking this is ridiculous I'm telling you the man doesn't want you to know anyway I want to see if this works normally with CNC machining if you're not sure that something will work you can take it really slow but that's not an option with rigid tapping you just have to go for it and so I'm going for it and amazingly it just works this is sweet so the reason I'm using the spiral flute tap is that it clears all the chips so you can see them coming out as the little whiskers the really common style taps with the straight flutes they build up all the chips in the flutes and I think even with a perfect rigid tapping cycle you'd probably break the tap if you did this many holes this worked really great and is actually really useful because tons of parts have tapped holes in them and tapping them as a lot of work and one of the main ways that I at least destroyed parts usually it's me tapping the last hole of 30 after machined the part for 5 hours I just snapped the top off in the park and once the top is in there it's in there so this is a bin of broken tools from I don't know the last year or so and I don't know looks like the needle fell off which is kind of funny so one of the worst things that can happen is a tool breaks and you're not there so you don't see it happen and then that the tool that broke was supposed to be doing something for a subsequent tool say for example it was a drill that was really in the hole which I'm going to tap and if the drill breaks then on the hole which means then smashed the tap into the surface so this can cascade into a really nasty series of failures if you want to be safer something that the tormach can supposedly do is tool breakage detection if you have a tool height setter but the idea is you go and test the height of the tool and if the height of the tool is not within some tolerance then it stops the Machine and says error what you don't see in here is most of the taps that have broken because they're still inside the parts that they broken they're just impossible to get out so let's try it out all right I've got a tool here and what we're going to do is we're going to test one of the more common errors that happens so this happens all the time to pretty much everyone you're just trying to do your thing here tool pass setup and you just accidentally hit it with your hammer and you break the endl in half so what you don't want to happen is for the machine to continue on is if nothing happened and machine air for a long time and then crash the next tool what you would do is you can the machine to check the height after this machining cycle and I'm gonna command it to do that and we'll see what happens and the Machine errored out so it's saying that the tool length exceeded the tolerance of 20,000th of an inch and so the machine checked itself before it wrecked itself it's a little known fact this is actually the origin of that phrase so obviously I've barely scratched the surface of this machine but I'm really excited to have it I'm looking forward to using it to make a lot more things that are complicated and get them done faster like all of my tools I plan to upgrade it wireless probing is towards the top of my list as are a bunch of other odds and ends like garden hose coolant sprayer the the biggest upgrade that's on my mind is a system to lift the tool changer up and out of the way when it isn't loading tools and the reason I might want this is that there's a risk of the tools hanging down and hitting the parts I'm working on and I think that it's doable to do but I need to see if this is actually a problem before I go and try to solve it because this is a pretty big project as always if you like what you see you should subscribe it is the best way to let me know that you like what you see and want more I also really enjoy reading the comments suggestions and other ideas so let me know your thoughts and that's all I have for now thanks

Channel: Stuff Made Here

Views: 1,351,812

Rating: 4.9452057 out of 5

Keywords: tormach, tormach 1100mx, tormach review, vertical mill, cnc machine, cnc milling, 3d printed, pcnc 1100, pcnc mill, cnc enclosure, flood coolant, tormach mill, machining, assembly, vmc, vertical machining center, jog pendant, pathpilot, pathpilot operator console, review, automatic tool changer, atc, tool height setter, tool breakage detection, bt-30, machine shop, rigging, mechanical engineering, rigid tapping, rigid tapping tormach, cnc machining

Id: lPMg0dk1hFI

Length: 22min 16sec (1336 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 08 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/azend]

I subscribed a few videos ago before all these haters got here. Tormach may not be the perfect machine/manufacturer but you make a great video. Excited to see what you make with your new purchase!

[u/fakeproject]

Hey, really enjoyed your video (subscribed/liked/hit the bell) and I'd love to see more detail on your plasma/sharpie combo. That's a great idea and one I'd like to build someday. The comedy is good but technical detail and reasoning about why you choose to do your projects a certain way is even better. If you have to make a choice, please explain the "why" and "how" in detail so we can all learn while being entertained.

[u/NotThatGuyAnother1]

I see your patterning your delivery after ThisOldTony. I bet he'd be flattered.

[u/Nomandate]

You are living the dream, my dude. Great video.

[u/frankensteinhadason]

Someone else here commented on the sharpie plasma cutter. I just wanted to reinforce that. I love it, it's now on my list of things to do.

Have fun with the tormach.

[u/_treefingers_]

What a great channel. Your content is great to watch! I have a 770 Series 3 and am extremely jealous of the quality of life improvements the mx gets!

[u/CNCjunkie]

Great video. I am subscribed. I went without the ATC on a 770M for a more budget build and really enjoy using it. It's doing everything I need it to. I'm jealous of the rigid tapping. The tension/compression holders I have work, but I usually only use them for through holes and threadmill the blind holes. I really like the PathPilot software.

I'm looking forward to your coming videos. I really like the presentation and format.

[u/[deleted]]

I would really like one of these.