Quote:
Originally Posted by sanddrag
I know it may be out of your budget, but originally, I was looking at a Tormach, and ended up going with a HAAS, and I cannot even begin to describe how big of a difference it is, and how glad I am that we upped the budget for a HAAS. See if you can sell the school district on safety. The HAAS is enclosed and has safety interlocks and is "industry standard equipment."
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I've used both, and can say with no hesitations that the HAAS is a beautiful machine and a joy to work with. It's very rigid, safe, strong, fast, well made, great control software, etc, etc, etc. With flood coolant, ATC, and a rienshaw, I'd call it my dream mill.
Whenever I've used it, I did find the Tormach more than adequate for most FRC uses. It's a good price, and cuts well. On the other hand, you can really see that it was made more for the garage machine shop (where build quality isn't quite as important) than for the industrial R&D and production runs the HAASes are made for.
Either way, make sure to get flood coolant. The only reason why I might want to use the Tormach over my team's HAAS is the flood coolant (our teacher had it uninstalled from the HAAS). It really improves cutting, and let's you crank through aluminum and even steel at very nice speeds. It can be very important if you want to go into "production mode" with a run of parts.