Why Buy FMT?

Value price and Industrial quality (VPIQ) are the two criteria we started with when we designed the Freedom Machine Tool product line. This is not a hobby CNC router. We build this machine to go the limit and work all day, every day with no surprises. Don't be fooled by the low price. We build an affordable CNC router that you can depend on to deliver the results for your business.

Framework

Top grade steel tube and plate are welded together to form the base and bridge framework (not bolt together or aluminum). The base is stress relieved prior to machining. After stress relief, the base and bridge structures are machined on one of our custom, large format, CNC machining centers to ensure the highest level of mechanical accuracy.

Motion Components

All axes move on 25mm precision profiled rails with recirculating, sealed bearing blocks. Motion on all 3 axes is provided by precision ball screws with anti-backlash ball nuts, mounted in angular contact bearing blocks. The ball screws are driven by brush-less AC servo motors with matching servo amplifiers. Click the image to the right for a larger view.

CNC Control

The FAGOR 8035 Industrial CNC control is a computer with tunnel vision. All it does is drive the machine tool. It has a color CRT, 256K of eprom memory, 128 megabytes of compact flash hard-disk program memory, and a USB port for transferring programs on a memory stick. It can be configured with a TCP/IP ethernet card and connected to your network. It is not a hobby type WINDOWS PC control with all the quirks and anomalies of the very unpredictable and in many cases, unstable, WINDOWS environment. Unlike a PC computer the FAGOR 8035 is designed to be in dirty machine tool surroundings. View more info on industrial controls versus WINDOWS PC.

Spindles

If you are on a tight budget the machine can be configured with a mounting plate and electrical connection to accept a porter cable router, which you provide. Wrench type spindle options include HSD 5 and 9 HP models with programmable spindle speeds from 2,000 – 18,000 RPM. In the automatic tool change category, we offer 5 HP and 11 HP HSD spindles, programmable up to 24,000 RPM with a 5 or 6 position tool rack. The 6th position depends on your desire for an automatic tool height senor (fits in the 6th tool position). All of our spindles are electric fan cooled for quiet operation. These widely used, US supported, precision spindles are less costly to repair and easier to maintain then the comparable, low quality, imported, liquid cooled types.

Other Design Features

All spindle tool plates are counter balanced to take pressure off of the Z-axis servo motor for smoother operation and long component life. High quality, robotic type flexible wiring is used throughout the machine, unlike the cheap wiring seen in many comparably priced CNC routers. Mechanically and electronically our machines start out very accurate, but if more precision is required laser calibration is available as an option. Our CNC control is not a black box, which means you can get service from us or directly from FAGOR Automation in Elk Grove Village, IL.

The Sum of VPIQ

What do you get when you combine a super competitive price with high integrity steel frameworks, a super component set, an industrial control, and matched servo amplifiers and brush-less AC servo motors? VPIQ (Value-priced, Industrial-quality) CNC routers.