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I am looking at the Tormach PCNC 1100. Looks good to me. Been learning SolidWorks 2014. What a hoot. This is one very deep CAD program. Having trouble cutting the design. Tried to find a class in my area and no luck so far. Watched a lot of tutorials. Going to figure it out one of these days. I like designing lures better than pouring and manufacturing!

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I am looking at the Tormach PCNC 1100. Looks good to me. Been learning SolidWorks 2014. What a hoot. This is one very deep CAD program. Having trouble cutting the design. Tried to find a class in my area and no luck so far. Watched a lot of tutorials. Going to figure it out one of these days. I like designing lures better than pouring and manufacturing!

 

You sound like a problem solver.  It's the challenge, not the final result, that's the kick.

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I have looked at a lot of CNC machines, and you really need to decide what your main focus is going to be.  The Tormach 1100 looks very good on paper, but you need to compare it apples to apples to a Novakon in the same class range.  I think the Tormach has marketed themselves better and been around one or two years longer, but the Novakon machines appear to be a better bang for your buck.  More machine for the money.  That being said, I would really NOT consider any of the Novakons or the PCNC 1100 as my first choice for CNC cutting aluminum bait molds.

We use a lot of small cutters to make molds.  Particularly if you do the level of detail I go for on some of my designs.  In order to get an acceptable material removal rate with a cutter that can only take off mear thousandths per tooth you need to have much higher RPMs than any of those machines can produce.  (That being said I've been cutting molds all week on my Hurco which only has a 3600 RPM spindle.)

Tormach's PCNC 770 is a better option for mold making than their 1100.  Its got a 10K spindle, and it still uses an R8 taper so you can use their quick change tooling package with it.  Its heavy enough not to move around too much, and its got pretty good rigidity.  It does have a smaller work envelope than their 1100 but its big enough to make hobby size molds, and small professional size molds if maybe not quite big enough to make production molds.  Seriously the average hobby mold is what?  4x6?  5X8?  I can make molds 6x12 on my old Taig.  LOL.   

Speaking of the Taig.  I've made a lot of molds on it, but its really a hobby level machine.  I have to adjust it twice a day if I am using it a lot.  On my two ton Hurco I only have to feed (oil, coolant, electricity, and air) it and I almost never have to adjust it.

RPM is king with small cutters.  I think the Syil X4 Speedmaster would be an excellent machine for a lot of people.  It has a decent quality 24K spindle, and is a cast iron machine.  Its not in the same class as the PCNC 770, but 2.4K times the rpm is going to make a huge difference in material removal rate.  Especially when you are cutting scales patterns with a .0625" ball mill or even slotting a flap with a .125 ball mill.  Its work envelope is only 6.3 x 11", but that's plenty big for making hobby bait molds.  Sure, surfacing a plate with a 1/4" end mill (largest size it holds) is going to be slower than I can surface a piece of plate with a 3" face mill on my Hurco, but it will eat the Hurco alive when it gets down to small detail cutting.  Its just as accurate, and has almost 7 times the spindle speed.  It doesn't matter that my big mill can rapid at 200 inches per minute.  I can't cut that fast anyway with a tiny cutter at only 3600 RPM.

My big complaint about the Syil Speedmasters is the limited end mill size.  1/4 max shaft diameter.  Maybe not that big an issue sinces its slowest cutting RPM is 8000.  It won't have the horse power to push a big end mill that fast.  (Its a .9HP machine)

Realistically all affordable (I consider affordable for this purpose as less than 10K for a new machine) machines are a compromise.  The PCNC 770 might be one of the best compromises if you might do more than just cut aluminum molds with your mill.  If not one of the faster spindle mills would certainly produce molds faster.

Another one I have lusted after are the mold maker gantry mills from SaleCNC in China.  Its got a similar 8k-24K spindle to the Syil, but its 2.2Kw  (almost 3HP) and it uses an ER20 collet which goes upto 1/2"  At first glance it looks like another gantry router, but its a fixed cast iron gantry.  The table moves in Y instead of the gantry.  This makes for a much more rigid machine.  It probably approaches the rigidity of the Novakon, the Syil, or Tormach bed mills.  A regular gantry router like the one posted in the start of this thread can certainly cut aluminum, but you can't push its horsepower limit to really take advantage of its high spindle speed.  It will flex and twist if you do.  I have a small CNC router also, and I do occasionally use it for cutting aluminum, but only very undemanding light cuts that use very little horsepower at high spindle speeds.  Anyway. the SaleCNC YX-3636 is half the price of the Bed mills I mentioned (but freight and import duties  could eat up the savings pretty quick), and its a pretty darn good compromise for the high speed end of the machining spectrum.  I probably won't buy one though.  I have never had the chance to speak to somebody who owns one.  There are plenty of Syil, Novakon, and Tormach owners who are willing to talk about their machines.

Sorry, I haven't been contributing much lately.  I'm not sure if there have been some advertising and information gathering changes here on TU in the last several months, but ever since I had some accounts hacked I have beefed up security and privacy on all my computers.  As a result TU doesn't work anymore.  I have to open a sand box environment, and connect using a special privacy proxy browser.  I even allowed TU cookies, but nope.  If I don't allow all those information gathering third party advertising cookies then TU won't let me play.  I'll try to come on from time to time and contribute my opinions no matter how wrong they may be, but I can't just casually connect anymore without opening up more on my computers than I want to.

Edited by Bob La Londe
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P.S.  There were recently a couple PCNC 1100 series 1 mills on Ebay for a couple grand less than a new one.  Not smoking cheap, and two releases older than current, but still.  cheaper than a new one.  I mention that because finding a Syil Speedmaster, a Novakon, or a Tormach for sale at any price less than new on Craigslist or Ebay is pretty rare. 

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