The Supercharger Store in Tucson, Arizona, builds systems for drag racing and specializes in centrifugal superchargers for street and strip use. Since 2003, their mission has been to provide the best engine power adder solution available with complete turnkey solutions and unmatched customer service.
“You like horsepower, we’ve got horsepower, not only in our machines but in what we make. We make systems for drag racing cars that allow them to produce over 2,000, upwards of 3,500 horsepower,” said owner Kris Tvedt.
Not long after purchasing the business in 2015, Tvedt decided to begin machining their parts in-house because they ended up with a lot of dead inventory. Tvedt said they had to buy large volumes of parts and since the industry was changing so fast those parts would end up obsolete.
“So, we thought, well, let’s see if we can bring this in-house, and we started looking for machines,” said Tvedt.
When looking for the right machine for his shop, Tvedt noted he “wanted something super solid.” He said Milltronics “rose to the top” for several reasons:
The Supercharger Store purchased a VM5020 machining center and has been pleased with the results.
“The accuracy and the repeatability of the machine has been just phenomenal,” Tvedt proclaimed.
With X, Y, Z-axis travels of 50″ x 20″ x 20″ and a table working surface of 52″ x 20″, the Supercharger team can always have three setups on the table.
Tvedt explained that he has a fourth axis, vise setup, and chuck setup on his VM5020 that lets him make semi-round parts on this Milltronics vertical machining center.
In addition to Milltronics having more standard features than the competitors, Tvedt praised the local support team at White’s Niche Products, Milltronics’ Arizona distributor.
“The local support was fantastic, and then just not having to deal with, you know, constant updating and licensing and some of those things that I saw with some of the other vendors,” exclaimed Tvedt. “And the rolled up base price versus a lot of add-ons. There were add-ons, everybody has add-ons, but the base price included a lot of stuff.”
Perhaps the biggest advantage Milltronics provides is the ease of the control. The Supercharger Store almost exclusively uses Milltronics’ conversational control to program parts. Machinist Deana Kelley described it as “easy to learn” and noted that the conversational edit function “made it very obvious” what she was doing as she checked and/or changed numbers.
“The control system on the Milltronics has been super easy to learn,” added Tvedt. “I do all the programming in the conversational. They’ve been able to read that, modify it on the fly, set up the tooling. We do use the Windows interface a lot to get files on and off the network.”
Tvedt continued, “That has been super easy to learn and do pretty complicated geometries with, even just minor DXF outputs from our CAD system and import it into the software.”
Tvedt highlighted Chip Boss TM, a conversational pocketing feature that allows for higher metal removal rates by increasing the depth of cut while controlling the allowable cut width, reducing cycle times, extending tool life and reducing wear on the machine tool.
“Started using a feature recently called Chip Boss TM within the software, and that has greatly sped up the development of more complicated surfacing or outlines and profiles of the parts. We’re using it for things that it doesn’t seem like it would be the most efficient way, but it’s actually turned out to be very efficient.”
With no machining experience prior to his time at The Supercharger Store, Tvedt credited Milltronics with helping shorten his learning curve and make his shop more efficient.
“I have been able to come up to speed and really make incredible parts very quickly and simply using the Milltronics machines.”
