a little about myself:
I started my cnc journey with a tormach 770 in my 2 car garage as a hobby about 8 years ago but 1 thing led to another now its my full time gig that I run out of a pole barn I built behind my house. I currrently have 3 haas spindles (2 mills and 1 lathe) and fancy VMM with touch probe and a TTL laser. My lathe does nothing 99% of the time but my mills are constandtly back logged so I so excited to be adding a Langmuir MR1 to my shop (im counting down the days until the first week of February when my machine should be ready)! I mainly want this badass little machine for some repeat jobs doing 2d polycarbonate parts but It got me thinking, how many new MR1 owners are hobby users and how many are established shop owners that see this machine as an investment? To me this machine looks like it could easily pay for itself in 1-2 years.
I have 2 3d printers running non-stop making parts. I got this mill to make small batch quantities of parts. I feel like the answer is pretty simple though, no ATC = extremely limited productivity. So it’s gonna be limited to small batch stuff and prototyping, not medium-large scale production.
good point. The no tool changer will make this machine more of a prototyping mill but thats 95% of what my shop does anyways so thst doesnt bother me. Its agood thing this MR1 has a tool setter
I purchased this mill solely with the intent of it being used to expand my shops capabilities into machining. Are there draw backs? yes absolutely, no tool changer, limited z travel, limited rapid speed. That being said our current location doesn’t have 3 phase power, and the cost to get into a haas vf2 or similar with phase converter was going to be well north of 30k. The tool setter really helps make up for the lack of tool changer as well. I think for more production style ops once cut control supports it, performing multiple tool changes in a part will be pretty painless. Its really not much different from the setup work you do with a haas where you establish the tool turret library, your just doing it while the part is running rather than before.
The way I see it we spent 7k for a fully optioned out machine, it can prototype a lot of the machined parts that we either cant make now or are outsourcing for very high costs and will easily pay for itself within the year. If we consistently find a need for a bigger machining and have the work there to keep it busy which the mr1 should prove. Then thats a sign for us to expand and lean into the machining side of the business more.
Our cross fire pro paid for itself just inside of 6 months and is honestly the backbone of our shop now. So I have pretty high hopes for the mr1 and similar results. We work on all sorts of projects but automotive performance is our specialty, specifically axles and suspension setups. This is our shop build that we built axles for and setup all the link suspension front and rear.
We are super excited to see what parts you make! We think MR-1 is a great tool for the projects that you’re working.
Also just a quick note on production; we use MR-1 machines in our shop constantly for production work and rework. Not having an ATC is not a huge killer if you have the probe/tool setter and can batch parts through a fixture. What I mean by that is let’s say you want to make 500 parts that require front and backside machining with 2 tools on each side (say an end mill and a chamfer mill). The best way to do this is run all parts through the vise or fixture on front side tool 1, then pass them through again front side Tool 2. Then flip and repeat on the backside. Yes it’s certainly more setup work but with the right fixture or vise part stop it can go pretty quick. At the end of the day MR-1 will never replace a true VMC for production, but like our smaller CNC plasma tables it can be used to supplement a production effort as long as you can work around the limitations.
Super cool! I started with a tormach 770 but that was becasue it was the only new cnc mill under 10k at the time. I loved learning how to run a CNC machine with that machine, espesially when my crashes only broke a tool maybe and not cause $20k worth of machine damage. If the MR1 had excisted back then I would have totally picked the MR1 for my first machine.
Once I saw the video Lanhmuir put out about how fast a tool change and measurement is with the tool setter, I knew I wanted the MR1.
I know a community that will love this machine so I plan on making a youtube video comparing the MR1 to my haas mills by making some test parts on each machine out of the common material that the community uses (6061, 4140, ar500, gr5 titanium and polycarbonate). I have a CMM with a laser scanner that can 3d map parts to a half a micron and a profilometer to compare surface finishes. It will be interesting to see the numbers but Im hoping it will help some cnc newbies and combat robot builders realize they dont need a $100k machine to make good parts
Im super pumped to start playing around with your MR1 mill and I think everyone knows this machine wont be “better” than a $100k VMC but at the amazing price you guys managed to get this MR1 mill down to it doesnt have to be. And of the 100s of parts I make a year (im just a 1 man prototyping job shop) a suprising large amout of them can be done with 2-4 tool changes so not that big of a deal at all.
I do expect what is going to limit the number of MR1 mills I buy will be shop space (I think I can fit 2-3 more MR1s in my shop)
@HuskyMachining i think you are right. The machine you pay for is not the machine you get. You cant compare it to an expensive $100k machine. When you set your parameters to “what machine fits in my garage” this one takes the cake.
Tormach 1100M with an enclosure is $21k. 3x what i paid for my MR-1
Shapeoko HDM is $5,400 and only high speed, no enclosure and low MRR
Datron… well I cant afford to look at their prices 
Any other “fit it in a garage” machines worth mentioning? maybe Syil? see Tormach lol
This will be very exciting to see the comparison! Thanks for offering to do this. 
Exactly! I hesrd Syils are good little mills but they cost more that a tormach which is already about 4x the cost of an MR1 and lol Datron are usually too expensive for aerospace machine shops from what i have heard.
I think Langmuir has made the best machine in its class but I gotta play around with my machine when it comes to say for sure
No problem, ill post the youtube link to my review sometime at the end of March (I knew I should have preordered the machine sooner!). I think it will be fun to compare the machines apples to oranges. I just wish I still had my old tormach to have 3 different machines to compare.
Nice to see someone who understands the value in what Langmuir does instead of complaining that it doesn’t also make you breakfast.
I’m using for the fabrication of boat or marine parts, that have been costing us thousands to make. You know if you needed a 100 pieces of something. You could farm it out to the big boys. But when you only need one or two it costs crazy money.
I’m confident this thing is my answer.
Just a thought? One of my friends has a large Haas VF 5 in his two car garage. Yes it takes up both bays. You walk in and say to yourself Holy s#=t
He’s retired and has a contract with the defense department. He makes small aluminum widget’s that are about 4x4" @ $400 each. He can make 10 to 12 per day.
Loads aluminum in the vise and pushes button and drinks coffee.
This machine could be a nice retirement job
for someone who doesn’t want to go fishing everyday.
I get ya. My cnc journey started becasue I couldn’t afford to the prices local shops quoted me for parts. I love that its getting more and more affordable with cnc mills like the Mr1.
damm, a vf5 in a 2 car garage! I have a vf2 and a vf1 in my 1500sqft shop in my backyard and I thought I was running out of floor space (im still trying to deside where I wanna put my MR1 once it get to me).
And lol, $400 per part sounds like DoD job, im a little jelly
It’s unbelievable. Had to have the power company run 3 phase 480v into his garage/shop. He got it used at an auction for 90k less than 100 hrs on it. It is a big garage out in the Tennessee sticks. Still it’s gigantic.
Lurker here. I’ve just sold my 2 Shapeoko 3s and am looking to upgrade. I haven’t pulled the trigger on any machine yet. I did see Saunders Machine Works provencut lists a recipe of 3.75 MMR for the HDM in 6061. I wonder if recipes are going to start popping up for the MR-1. I suppose anything is a step up from 0.3-0.4 MMR lol.
what machine is the HDM? My first non diy cnc mill was a tormach 770 and My max MMR for reliable roughing was about 2.5in3/min.
Carbide3D Shapeoko HDM