Anyone had any experience with this?

I agree with Matt, a manual lathe and a CNC mill make a great combination. I have a manual mill and a CNC mill - the CNC feature on a mill makes a number of milling machine operations that would be very difficult or even impossible on a manual mill - become very easy on the CNC mill. I have never used a CNC lathe, but I have never been held back because I did not have CNC capabilities on the lathe. Conclusion: I am not in a rush to get a CNC lathe.

Doing a CNC mill conversion? Obviously it works out okay, since it seems to be a common project here. I look at what I spent on my CNC mill and the capabilities and think about what it would take to convert my knee mill to even a very basic CNC (never mind the enclosure, flood coolant, tool changer or 4th axis, chip conveyor) and and it looks like it would be easy to spend similar coin for a lot less capability.

Perhaps we could hear more from people who have done the manual --> CNC mill conversion, what the end of day outlay was and for what sort of features? I get it that the added capabilities you get on a CNC mill makes it a game changer compared to a manual mill - just based on my experience a purpose build machine from a major manufacturer is pretty tough to beat.

Army - get the manual machine, learn, build stuff, enjoy that machine. Then go buy a CNC machine. My2Cworth.
A mill to replace much of what a lathe can do? That has not been my experience. A lathe is extremely versatile and can do many things that you might also do in a mill. There are lots of lathe only home shops (that is all I had for nearly 30 years). Obviously it depends on what projects you tackle, I don't know of very many (actually zero) mill only shops. Perhaps others here could comment on the limitations of only having a mill to work with?
 
Just read this thread, and noticed something about the combo. The head assembly is supported by four rods, maybe 1" to 1 ½" diameter. Possibly "equivalent" to Thompson shafts/linear bearings. I really don't think such a 4 rod arrangement would make for a very rigid head mounting. In contrast, the Smithy machines make use of castings to hold the milling head.
 
That is almost certainly the same company as previously sold "shoptask" and "shopmaster" 3-in-1 machines. The fact that they re-name themselves every decade or so might tell you something.

The machines are imports, with some (very limited) amount of QC _maybe_ being done before they re-ship it to you. The company has always been a bit of a shoestring operation, although in some ways they might be better than harbor freight or others who also sell chinesium machines. It's the difference between dealing with a fairly big corporation that doesn't care about you vs a 2-man operation that _might_ care but can't do anything about it because they are barely keeping their heads above water.

I have an older (late 90's) one, which was bought as a manual (for a little under $2K) and then I converted to CNC.

It's not a bad lathe, although the short tailstock ram travel is a real pain. They've re-designed the tailstock a couple of times to try to fix that. Can't tell how the latest one works from the terrible photos on that website. The extremely short tailstock base hasn't changed, because that would require either a longer bed or loss of X travel. There are no half-nuts so manual threading sucks. I think I cut about two threads on mine in the 5-6 years I had it before converting to CNC. With CNC threading is no longer difficult.

It's pretty bad as a mill. Not very rigid, and only a bit over 3" of quill travel. You're constantly building weird setups to deal with the lack of Z travel. They realized how bad that sucks and built the bridgemill version where the entire head goes up and down. I don't have any experience with that version. But you can't get away from the fact that in its bones it is an import machine. Spindle bearings (lathe and mill spindles) are automotive grade tapered roller bearings, not the ABEC7 angular contact ball bearings you'd expect in a good machine spindle.

I bought it because I didn't know any better. I still use it, largely because it is CNC, and because it is in my warm basement rather than the cold garage where my real mill (Van Norman #12, bought a few years later) lives. If you have limited space or are in a basement, the difference between a 700 lb machine (that can break down into 300 lb chunks) and an 1800 lb machine with 600 lb chunks can make or break the deal.

My two cents:
It's a kit. Perhaps today's version is less of a kit than mine, but make no mistake, it will need work.
If you must buy a new import CNC machine, Tormach is several levels higher in quality and support.
If you are handy and really want quality, look for something used from a "real" machine tool maker. You'll still have to troubleshoot and fix things, but its the difference between having a "fixer-upper" Mercedes and a "fixer-upper" Yugo.

I really think their target market is people who don't know any better (like me 20 years ago). Just look at their advertising, and compare it to people selling other types of machines.

My $0.02

John
 
It looks like those combination machines are limited in both the lathe and mill functions. Neither fish nor fowl.
 
I live in Las Vegas, and Shopmaster is based here. I was considering buying this and went to the guy's shop to look at it. This was a few years ago as it looks like he sold the product line to Chicago Lathe. Yes, as another poster said, he did run this out of his house/shop but he's been doing this for 10-20 years. Like LittleMachineShop, he buys the base machine from China where he has personally visited over the years and build them to his specifications and tolerances (that's why so many look the same, because it's the same base). Once he get's them here, he tunes them and makes changes to improve them, and then adds the DROs and CNC controller. While he was running his shop, his reviews on customer service were great and owners got personal attention. With all that said, if he's really sold the business, I don't know how the quality is holding up, who's doing the work, and if the software will stay up-to-date. Stuck with DOS and Win95? or even Win7? That's the trouble with buying EOL machines or those from vendors who don't stay in business. Can't comment on the machine since I didn't buy one, but I did do some pre-purchase research by visiting the company.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top