What does Tormach’s 1500MX CNC mill do, and what makes it so popular?
The 1500MX is actually the latest in our line of mills. Tormach’s really known for making capable, affordable, easy-to-use equipment, and the 1500 really takes that capable aspect to an entirely new level for us. It’s the basics that everybody wants. It’s bigger; it’s better; it’s faster, and it’s still at a competitive price point.
You introduced two new accessories for this CNC at IMTS. What are those accessories, and what are they designed for?
We released two accessories that really go well together. The first is a through spindle coolant (TSC) kit, and the other is a mist collection system.
The through spindle coolant kit does exactly what it sounds like. It takes the high-pressure coolant and puts it directly through the spindle and through small orifices in the tools themselves to get that coolant exactly where you need it.
And as you might expect, if you’re moving a bunch of coolant around, spraying stuff everywhere, it makes a lot of mist, like an aerosol at that point. And you don’t want to breathe that stuff in. We’ve got a mist collector now, and it helps get all that out of the air before it gets to you.
How does the TSC kit enhance the tool life and the performance?
It’s a high-pressure coolant system that goes through the tools themselves. What that means is that really high pressure helps move chips out of the way. If you’re milling a pocket, for example, it helps get things out of the way and clear things out really well. If you’re drilling, it helps break those chips and flush them out of the flutes of the drill, which allows you to drill so much faster that way.
Typically, we see 20 percent to 30 percent improvements in tool life. It also helps with the surface finishes and things like that. And for drilling, there’s just no comparison. You can do through spindle drilling significantly faster than if you’re just using a flood coolant or drilling dry.
The mist collector accessory is designed to maintain a clear workspace, like you said. How does it do that?
Effectively it’s a big vacuum. It’s in this system that it draws the air out of the machine itself. It goes into this little container where the air hits a metal screen that helps condense the coolant back into big drops that can then be reintroduced into the system, so that the air that comes out of the machine is cleaned up.
Since our audience is gear manufacturing, how will that help in that sector?
One of the accessories that we released with the machine at launch is our fourth axis. Users can mill gears using that fourth axis. We’ve got such fine control over it; they’ll either put a gear hob or another appropriate cutter in and be able to index it very accurately to make their gears themselves.
You showed these accessories in action at IMTS. What kind of reactions did you get?
The reaction was very positive. People were really excited about it. But the general themes were, “Wow, a machine at this price point that has through spindle coolant available on it, and the accessory is competitively priced with what’s out there.”
The mist collector, immediately, we had our existing customer base going, “Can we use this for our other machines that you have?” Which, yes, we’re working on brackets for that kind of thing as well.
There was even a preview. We had a third accessory that we haven’t released yet, but it was there, and everybody got to see it, which was our chip conveyor, which we expect to have released before the end of this year. And there was an awful lot of, “Wow, this is a very well-thought-out, well-rounded machine. You can tell that it’s made by people who are actually machinists.”
What has been the market response as you’ve rolled out these accessories?
I think, overall, it’s been very positive. The machines themselves have been selling well since we released it in April. I noticed, especially at IMTS, there was, again, another theme where we had folks who were there shopping for work for these great big machines that we don’t make, obviously. But then they would come by our booth because they were interested in putting something in their own shop or their own garage. The fact that these quite advanced users were considering our machines and looking at them and making plans to add a Tormach to their own home shops was very gratifying.
Is there anything else you’d like to add that we didn’t talk about?
If anybody’s interested in seeing more about this, they can go to our website. It’s all listed there, all of the prices, everything is all online. And if they have any questions, they can contact the pre-sales team for support.
