My "new to me" vertical machining center

alloy

Dan, Retired old fart
H-M Supporter Gold Member
Joined
Jul 5, 2014
Messages
2,757
A few weeks ago I bought a Fadal VMC15 from work for $2k. I rented a truck and drug it home and unloaded it with a rented forklift.

I bought a 25hp motor off ebay and a phase converter panel. About a month ago I did a power upgrade for my shop and house and now have 200 amps in the shop and house. I'm glad I did that, I only had 70 amps in the shop when I bought the house.

With Jim Dawson's help I got the phase converter wired up yesterday and fired the machine up. The converter is much quiter than I thought it would be for such a large motor. Everything seems to run just fine. The mill is still on the machinery skates and not leveled yet. I wanted to leave room on the corner behind the mill to get the phase converter moved into place and everything wired up. Next weekend I'll move it into the final position and level it and hopefully make some chips.

With the converter and moving cost I have a little over $4k into it. I had tooling left over from my old shop thankfully.

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Living the dream:cheerful::encourage:
 
Did you run it at work? If not could invite the person who did over for dinner and maybe some beers a few times to help you get up to speed on it.
 
I hope it turns out to be a good dream ;)

I ran it for 8 years. I was running parts on it the day before I moved it.

We just did plastic parts on it. The other Fadals have 18,000 running hours on them, this one has 7000. Has a new y axis motor, new z axis motor, came with an extra spindle drive and a vise. We also put air blast on it and a usb drive setup.

I was thinking now that I have a large phase converter I can use it for other things I may run across
 
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Well, you suck. :)

Have fun making chips with that bad boy!
 
Good move for your company to sell that to you. You stay interested with your own machine, get more skills and become an even better employee...
 
We take very good care of the machines there. They all got a PM each year.

Wow, been awhile since I got a "you suck"

They replaced 3 of the fadals with brother high speed machines. They are very fast, but we can't get tools last in 15-5 stainless. So really with putting new tooling in about every hour they are actually slower overall. I've encouraged them to get a tool rep in and try different tooling instead of the MSC cheap stuff. You need high performance tooling for a high performance machine. They are quickly learning that.

Anyway I'm looking for a part or product to make on the VMC. I do transmission modifications but they really don't lend themselves to being done on a CNC. I don't want to be a job shop again. I want to make and sell things on my time. I'm a car guy so that would be where my interest is, but if it makes money I dont care what I make.
 
I ran it for 8 years. I was running parts on it the day before I moved it.
... wowsers! ... almost like getting married to the girl you'd been dating for a while. May she be your good friend for a long, long time!
 
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