1500MX vs. Haas Mini, any installs in New England?

My new shop building is nearing completion so I am starting to look more seriously at a new VMC to upgrade from my 1100S3.

At this point I am probably 95% down to the 1500MX versus a Haas Mini-Mill.

I have had a good experience with my 1100 and like the specs on the 1500, but am a bit spooked buying a machine this new with so little public info out there. When I bought my 1100 in 2013 it was a known quantity and did not disappoint.

In terms of why I want to upgrade, my primary wants are:

  1. Real ATC-friendly spindle taper
  2. Faster spindle RPM
  3. Fully-integrated wireless probe/toolsetter system
  4. More table capacity
  5. More rigidity

On paper, the 1500 and Mini-Mill are fairly close. Both have 10K spindles, I don’t care about BT30 vs. CAT 40, both have wireless probing, both have more table space than an 1100. The Mini does weight about 50% more, but the 1100 is generally rigid enough for what I do, but more is always better. The Haas has 2X more HP, but MRR is rarely an issue for my prototype/small run work, so I’m not chasing that.

What we all know though is that specs don’t really capture everything about how well a machine actually operates and makes chips. I don’t want to count Tormach out of this purchase simply because the machine is new but I need more than a few website testimonials to bet $50K on the machine.

I split my time between Boston and western Mass., so if anybody has a 1500 running in New England or Albany/Hudson Valley regions I could see running, it would help make the decision. Happy to bring a bottle of something or buy you lunch for the privilege.

Thanks in advance!

Hi Colin:

Do you have any update? I’m also trying to decide between a 1500MX and Haas Mini-Mill, and a few details confuse me. There are many small CNC users around me (I’m in Minneapolis/St. Paul Suburbs) and everyone’s intrigued by the 1500MX, but nobody has actually seen one. And there’s just not enough details on existing forums and youtube videos.

A few of my questions are…

  1. Will the new linear guide rales be strong enough and durable? I noticed the maximum table weight of 300 pounds is well below other machines, and that hints that the linear guide rales aren’t as durable/robust as I would think. This is a very new design.

  2. I’m confused as to why the 1500MX only allows the (very expensive) wireless probe while the 1100MX only allows the wired probe. I thought Tormach allows 3rd party accessories, so can we wire up cheaper generic probes and toolsetters? Why does the PathPilot controller even care if there’s a wireless or wired connection between the probe and the controller? I’m worried I’m stuck with a $5440 probe/toolsetter system, and I’d rather be crashing some cheaper alternatives, as I can’t afford replacing these expensive probes (the replacement probe is $2950.)

  3. I can’t find any information about how this very expensive wireless probe/toolsetter works. It uses batteries, so I guess you must remember to turn them off so the batteries don’t go dead overnight. Do the batteries last long enough to be useful? It seems like battery replacement is not at all easy. I wish I knew more. I’m afraid of spending so much on something I know so little about.

Gosh, if anyone knows anything to share, I’d love to hear from them. I think I’ll post a separate question about the wireless probe/toolsetter, as this original posting is already 6 weeks old.

  • Thomas

In one word, no.

I did talk to Tormach sales, and they were friendly and answered my questions, but either nobody is home or they’re selling enough of these machines to schools and labs that guys like us aren’t a big priority.

I suspect the table weight limit is more about the screws and servos than the rails. I don’t see a big problem with that number and many industrial machines have fairly low weight capacity to get higher acceleration etc.

As for the probe, it is what it is. A wireless probe is a must have for me so the choices they made here make sense.

I continue to be really intrigued by this machine but I just don’t think I’m going to get over spending 45k on what feels to me like a complete unknown. In fact most of the options I’m considering are considerably more expensive, but very proven, and more capable.

On paper the 1500MX would be all the machine I need but it’s a lot of money to roll the dice on.

I have a few points to help bring some clarity to your questions about the probe/ets on the 1500MX.

  • PathPilot manages turning the Probe/ ets off and on when it needs them, so that isn’t something you have to worry about.
  • battery replacement is simple as both devices have a water tight cover that has a quarter turn lock on it. Therefore you just need a coin/ screw driver and the new batteries, the replacement process takes a minute or three.
  • both devices will signal to PathPilot when their batteries are low, which will give you a heads up.
  • since the 1500MX has absolute encoded servos on every axis, the entire electrical cabinet is different than the other MX machines. This machine, for example, doesn’t have an ECM board and otherwise runs on an Ethercat bus. Therfore, adding the wired is not a trivial task.

A few other points on the machine:

  • unfortunately, these machines are selling to tool rooms and industrial customers well more than they are to hobbyist with a heavy social media presence. This is great in one sense but it leaves a bigger vacuum for content for you all to see.
  • we are aware that this machine is an unknown to a lot of folks out there, which is why we are offering an extended warranty with each machine. We want you to know that we stand by our product.
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Thanks Davie! I am glad the machine is selling well.

Regarding the “unknown quantity” aspect of this machine, I’d say there are three dimensions to this:

  1. Teething problems typical of a new machine
  2. Design flaws that are hard/impossible to correct in the field
  3. Work capability

The warranty 100% covers (1) and as a previous owner I have a lot of trust there.

(2) is hard to quantify as some of it might only become obvious after years/thousands of hours/units shipped. Short of a time machine, “chatter” from the field is the best way to gauge this. On the whole I suspect you guys built a good machine and nothing about it seems unconventional.

(3) is actually my biggest question mark. This isn’t a criticism, but rather a matter of expectations. At 2800ish pounds, it’s a lot heavier than an 1100 and a lot lighter than almost any other “real” VMC. I have no doubt it can make good parts in aluminum. How much better are the finishes than an 1100? How does it perform in 304 or 316? Obviously if I knew I was going to be making a lot of large stainless parts I’d be looking elsewhere.

As it is, my 1100 can make functional parts in harder steels but it’s not fun and the low rigidity shows. I’m sure the 1500 is better, but how much? I don’t expect fast parts, but I’d like to know the machine has enough rigidity to run a smaller face mill or .375” endmill and give a decent surface finish without sounding like it’s going to shake itself off the stand.

I understand that as customers the garage shop guys are kind of the biggest PITA to sell to with the most dumb questions and the least budget :rofl:

FWIW regarding #3, I don’t know if your 1100 is a series 1/2/3 or an M but my MX has absolutely no issues with steels, including 300 series stainless, prehard 4140, etc. I can and do run both a 3/8 end mill and a 2.5" face mill in my machine, with steels, without issues. It’s all about the tool itself and the cut parameters. Granted, it’s taken me quite a lot of time to find recipes and tools that work reliably but now that I’m there, I don’t think twice about what material I’m running.

With all the extra weight, additional hp, and additional damping through the new base, I can only assume the 1500 will do everything I’m already doing faster and better.

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It’s a Series 3.

To be clear, none of this is intended as a criticism. I paid ~11K delivered for my basic 1100 in 2013, and adjusted for inflation the 1100M today is about the same price, and a bit more machine. I still think that’s a great place to get started with CNC machining. There really isn’t another option that’s that accessible in terms of cost and form factor, with domestic support by a real company, and the convenience of buying new. Every alternative involves some big compromises on one or more of those.

At most of 3X the price, the 1500 is in a league with a lot more competition. I wouldn’t generally recommend a beginner with 20K to spend to buy a used ancient 3-phase VMC (realistically a 5-10K machine), but if you’re spending 40K+ the used choices start to improve significantly, and you’re also most of the way to a much higher league of machines if you can handle the weight and power needs, which I can.

For me, if I’m spending $50K by the time I’m done, I don’t want a machine that’s just incrementally more rigid than my 1100. The 1500MX may well be quite a lot better than that, but I feel like I need more than the small number of videos out there or a Zoom demo to stake $50K on it.

If I was running a school lab/toolroom/etc I’d probably have ordered a 1500 already. The value equation isn’t quite as exceptional (IMHO) as the base 1100M/770M but it is certainly very competitive. And if you can’t handle 3 phase or 3+ ton machines, then it’s probably one of the only choices.

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Thomas,

Apologies for writing a book on this one.

If you think about what you need to stack on the table to get to 500 lbs it pretty quickly becomes a bit ridiculous. For the 1500 a steel Saunders fixture plate + 4 Kurt DX6 vises is 400 lbs (and you’re out of X travel with 3 vises anyway). In normal use you will be hard pressed to get near the weight limit, so the question becomes why design for capacity not needed by >95% of customers and resultingly add cost to every machine? In fact, one of the first 1500 customers was an injection molding company doing degating of parts around ipad sized. Their fixtures are all steel, around 12" x 18" x 6" with 4-8 cylinders clamping the parts and they’ve had no issues with weight capacity.

Wireless probing has long been a requested feature by all our customers and every wireless probe system above hobby level has a “did you wake up?” signal that must be confirmed before we allow the probe/ETS to start doing it’s thing (though we allow rapid movement before we see that signal) that no wired probe/ETS has the ability to respond to. One major aspect of why wired probes/ETS’s are not compatible with the 1500 is that on both the hardware and software sides there were decisions made on “what do we need?” vs “what would be nice?” to limit the scope of the largest project the company has ever done.

The software changes to Pathpilot were extensive for the 1500, which is why 2.11 has been an exclusive release for 1500’s, and post 1500 launch the dev team’s focus has entirely been on re-unifying Pathpilot for all machines with 2.12. Once that is released (soonTM) then there will be some breathing room for other projects. We have not ruled out the possibility of compatibility of wired probes/ETS’s for the 1500 but we also have a year+ backlog of “other projects” for consideration. If this is one that you feel strongly about then I’d recommend submitting a feature request ticket here (yes, we do actually read those). Customers giving us feedback via feature request tickets are part of consideration on priority of work for the dev team.

I’ll add one note on policy of third party accessories, we’ve always maintained that once a customer purchases a machine from us, they own it and can add whatever they want to the machine be it a probe, tool setter, 5th axis table (I’d love to see this one), etc. However, Tormach will not provide assistance to customers to do so, it is a DIY adventure. Similarly, consideration during machine design does not take compatibility of 3rd party accessories into account. That sounds a bit harsh, but the other side of the coin is that we don’t do anything to lock our customers out of making any changes they wish, they just have to go digging a bit.

An overview of the wireless probe system is being worked on, but I’m not sure when exactly that will be released. Davie covered the batteries, which are 1/2 AA’s, otherwise in large part functionality of the wireless probing system is no different to a wired tool setter or spindle probe. We implemented a lot of the functionality needed for the wireless portion in ways that you won’t have to take any extra steps. Eg, if you call tool 99 into the spindle, whether the probe is in the spindle or not as long as the receiver can see it it automatically turns the probe on and also turns it off when you call a different tool or tool 0 for emptying the spindle. And for the ETS if you touch off a tool it also automatically comes on. There are new M codes for manual activation/deactivation if needed for whatever reason, but most people would never use them. If the ETS or probe isn’t seen in 10 seconds then Pathpilot gives an alarm saying so to stop the machine.

Not specific to the wireless probing system, but I also wrote a suite of probing macros designed for integration into CAM software post processors and those are already integrated into the SprutCAM and Fusion360 posts. Our manual probing routines are not at all suited for use with anything but UI buttons. David Loomes’s probing macros also already did exist and still function perfectly fine but were very much hard coded to be used only with Fusion and the point of my macros was to make them software agnostic. My macros currently only update work coordinates, at some point I may do a v2 that can be used for tolerance inspection.

Thank you,
Norman

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I thank you all for the informative replies!!!

  1. I’m glad to hear the probe sort of “goes to sleep” and “wakes up” to conserve battery power, and batteries aren’t really that hard to replace.
  2. I figured the “Etherbus” system is why adding a wired probe is non-trivial. As an electrical engineer, I can almost imagine making an “Etherbus” emulator interface, to allow a cheaper probe to “pretend” to be responding to all the extra interrogations from the controller, but really don’t need a lot of extra projects either. I’ve never been afraid of breaking a $100-$300 tool, but crashing the $2950 probe is going to ruin my week.
  3. Yes, a 300 pound table limit doesn’t bother me in the least. It’s just that the decrease from 500 pounds to 300 pounds hinted at a rigidity problem.
  4. I understand the number of units sold is a trade secret, but glad to hear they’ve been selling well to industrial customers. That’s why there’s very little talk on the internet forms. Big industrial users don’t complain on forums if things aren’t going well, they just sell the items at auction 18-24 months later. That’s why I’m seeing lots of used Haas Mini-Mills selling for 35% of their new value in the Minneapolis/St Paul area. I think lots of companies are buying the Haas Mini-Mills, but then find out it’s not quite what they need.

Thanks to everyone! I’ll do some more thinking, and learning!

  • Thomas in Minnesota.