Warco VMC Vario

Hi folks,

The variable speed driven version of this machine has been out in use for a while now (the initial batch stocked by Warco sold out in no time), and I was curious what the owners/users of these machines think of them. Are they an improvement over the standard version, worth the money, have you done any modifications, your thoughts on rigidity, accuracy etc?

As always pictures are encouraged

-- BUMP --

I'm curious about the VMC Vario and people's experiences with it. It seems an ideal size for my workshop although I'd rather an 3MT spindle if this was possible as I have a lot of tooling already.

The Super Major Vario is a jump in price and size, is it worth it?

Thanks,

Joel

I originally had a Major round column mill, then bought the Chester equivalent of Warco's VMC...The 626.

I added my own 3ph motor/vfd for less than the price difference of £500....between the std vmc and the vario....( sold the original 1ph motor...)

The VMC is far better than the Major, no round column for starters....Quieter than a geared head mill too I suspect

I also added a rising block too, to give more headroom between table and spindle....One of the best mods ever.

Given the choices of other mills of similar size, I'd still plump for the VMC/626.

Captain Biggles

Back around year 2000(ish) I bought a one off square column mill fitted with a VFD controlled motor and two speed belt drive from Chester. Pretty much equivalent to a Super Major Vario albeit with a smaller table and none of the bells'n whistles like power feed, DRO et al.

Went round and round many laps trying to decide whether a 626 / VMC or square column bench mount mill gave best bang for buck. In the end the VFD drive swung it. Objectively the bench mount machine was easier to finagle into a pre-filled workshop but there are visibility issues with the big square head and the screw from the bottom depth stop is Beezlebubs own. Works but not well enough to be relied on. Being a slim "sub-Bridgeport" style the 626 / VMC head gives much better visibility. Why none of the import suppliers offer a similarly slim head as the varispeed option on a square column bench mill I don't know. The square head now being mostly empty box rather than full of gears. Think small bed mill.

When it comes to practical work capabilities I'd reckon the Super Major Vario and VMC Vario would be just about impossible to separate over the general run of jobs. Cherry picking specific examples where one is better that the other is probably possible but outside of, maybe arcane, specifics you'll never noctice once you have got into the swing of how best to exploit the one you bought. As a happy Bridgport driver these days I still don't know wheter I plumped for the right one back then!

One thing that applies to both though.

From my experience choosing to cover the whole speed range on the VFD is a considerable error. Mine 2 belt speed device covered 125 to 1,400 rpm on low speed belts and 250 to 2,800 rpm on high. Which generally worked very well inded although I feel that something like 90 to 1,000 on low speed might have been a little better when swinging flycutters and the like. But less overlap might well have led to more belt speed changes mid job. My recollection is that the overlap in speed ranges was so large thatI never needed to do mid job belt changes so not an issue for me. Jobs were either low speed or high speed ones and the belts set appropriately before hand. In practice left where they were unless I had to change.

I am sure that trying to cover 100 to 2500 or thereabouts in a single VFD speed range is ambitious and will sacrifice some performance. In practice it may well work well enough but I can't see anyone who has used a two range version wanting to switch back to a single range.

Clive

Thanks both.

I'm after a VFD controlled motor of at least 1kW, with 3MT spindle and a table bigger than 500 x 150mm and feeds on at least the longitudinal travel. It should be c. 1000mm width footprint.

The closest machine I've found that meets these criteria is the Wabeco F1410 but that is significantly out of my price range, sadly.

As far as I can tell from what you've written, and looking at Warco's website, the primary difference between the VMC and Super Major is that the Major is bigger and has a back gear rather than belt drive. Anything else I've missed?