I used to think manual tool touch offs were fine until I tried a Blum laser on our old Haas VF2

Always did it by hand with a shim stock, figured it was close enough. The shop in Tacoma I moved to last month has a Blum TC52 on their machine and the boss made me use it. Cuts setup time by about 15 minutes per job and the repeatability is just better, especially on long run stuff. Anyone have a good budget alternative for a laser system, or is it just worth saving up for the name brand?

3 comments

3 Comments

tarar3819d ago

That bit about shim stock being "close enough" hits home. We ran a job last month where our manual touch off was just a hair off, maybe two thou. Scrapped three parts before we caught it. The time we lost on that paid for half a laser right there.

the_ben19d agoMost Upvoted

How many shims have I cursed out over the years, lmao?

kevinallen19d ago

Man, the thing that gets me is how a laser changes your whole setup mindset. I used to dread swapping tools mid job because touching off again felt like rolling dice. With a laser you just do it, no second guessing, and that confidence lets you plan more aggressive tool changes or even run unattended. It's not just about saving fifteen minutes, it's about removing that little bit of stress every single time you load a program.

-1