Which machines are the best?
Which machines are the best?
(OP)
Please assist! I have the pleasure of being in the position of purchasing new: 15 CNC lathes. 6 CNC Machining Centres and 10 CNC sliding head machines. The company I work for has been bought out by a competitor due to one of our customers being very valuable. The purchasing company has decided to utilise the very highly trained and experienced team of engineers and re-equip them with new machinery! (I know I was somewhat shocked also) I have my own ideas which are the best machines to use. The CNC lathes will be used to manufacture VERY highly accurate screws, spindles, pistons and various similar products in a sub-contract situation, of sizes no greater than 5"O/D but the majority in the 2m/m - 20m/m O/D. What do you think are the best (more accurate) machines out here? I tend to lean for 'Hardinge'.
The machining centres will manufacture various highly complex stainless/ aluminium 'boxes with various ports and depths. to sizes to greater than 14" in length/ width but not ehaustive. We current use a DMG machine that has a very high accuracy and we are very pleased with the outcome.
Sliding head machines, I have no idea in what to expect in Quality. the machines we currently use are Citizens but we are very disapointed with the repeatability of our long running batches (Or this could be our emaployees lack of experience/ training)!
Any help and suggections would be very appreciated!
Lee
The machining centres will manufacture various highly complex stainless/ aluminium 'boxes with various ports and depths. to sizes to greater than 14" in length/ width but not ehaustive. We current use a DMG machine that has a very high accuracy and we are very pleased with the outcome.
Sliding head machines, I have no idea in what to expect in Quality. the machines we currently use are Citizens but we are very disapointed with the repeatability of our long running batches (Or this could be our emaployees lack of experience/ training)!
Any help and suggections would be very appreciated!
Lee





RE: Which machines are the best?
you mentioned that you have hardinge and DMG. these are both good machines. the CHNC machines from hardinge are known to be workhorses and do well within the production environment. DMG(deckel maho gildemeister) is a german machine and has proven to very accurate machines. we have a gildemeister cnc lathe that we really like and it is where we do our closer toleranced work. i have heard a lot of different stories when comes to cnc screw machines. i have heard more say that they do not like citizen compared to the people that do. i do not know a lot about these types of machines - only the feedback i get from other people in the field. i here that nomura is a good machine and that it seems to be preferred over citizen because it is a quality machine that is priced lower than the citizen.
scott
RE: Which machines are the best?
I'll think about seeing the DMG rep but, are there any British made machines? would like to keep the purchase close to home! I understand Hardinge are American?
Lee01
RE: Which machines are the best?
Food for thought
RE: Which machines are the best?
RE: Which machines are the best?
www.mtta-importers.org.uk
give it a look before you make your final decision.
RE: Which machines are the best?
On Machining Centers, We have a baby Hass - VFE - and in the 5 years had 2 keypads go out, an air solinoid valve fail, and a drive motor for the x axis that we had to send out to rebuild. Total cost on parts about $1800 over 5 years. Other than that, it is an excellent machine. Service is great and the price is affordable. I would definately put them in contention www.hasscnc.com
Good luck with your quest.
RE: Which machines are the best?
congrades on the investment!
as important is the operating software with that many machines you maybe able to incorporate a better programing package more user friendly. have been programing/running cnc for 10 years now mainly in conversational language and have to say a good conversational language with a colour screen is a joy to work with as operator/programmer eg something like mazatrol language from mazark (from japan).
for an example was using a superquick turn mazark lathe with c axis and live milling heads after a 2 week training course with no cnc experience before. there is other software out there but just an idea of how good/user friendly some of the new software is today.
ps you still needed to tinker with machine after the two week course may options available.
good luck .
RE: Which machines are the best?
Mori's are brilliant, and the very latest Mori Seiki's are even better machines. They even have their own CAM system built in, though we found that a bit of a liability cos the operator can get a bit tempted to have a go! IMHO for turning nothing touches a Mori.
Excessive accuaracy is a sign of poor breeding. -Socrates.