Which machines are the best? 1

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

 

[scottmaha]

wow! what a lucky guy. there is nothing better than spending other peoples money - especially when comes to capital equipment.

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

 

Nice one!

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

 

I am an Applications Engineer for a Large Machine tool dealer in Minn. I am able to talk with many users of Swiss style sliding headstock machines. I have 13 years of experience with these machines. From a sales standpoint ( I am not a salesman) it appears that Citizen is leaving all others in the dust. I have heard the stories of no support for the Nomura's. I have been in companies with Star, Tsugami, Tornos, Nomura and Citizen. One in particular has switched to Citizen for it's last 5 purchases. The M series and the C Series type IX easily allow three tools in the cut with very easy programing. No one is compalining about their accuracy as being any worse than others. In fact the opposite is more true. They are extremely reliable. Support is excellent. What most people fail to realize is that roundness of the stock and variations in stock is usually the accuracy problem cause. I have personally held +/- .00015" after a slight machine warmup for 9 years of three shift operation on two Citizen E machines using Oil, not water soluable. No Guide bushing failures or major machine problems. I hold the stock to a diameter tolerance of +/- .00025" from a local centerless grinder.
Food for thought

 

[WIPLASH]

Hands down mori seiki is the best.It is too bad that they are not from home.But if you want accuracy rigidity speed and reliability you can not beat them.Their resale value is the best in the buisness.They last forever and they hog.Ive been machining for 12 years and I have been around a lot of different machines.I travel to our sub contractors and keep them on schedule,and most of the time it is done by replacing their junk with moriseki machines.If you dont look at them you are hurting your companies potential

 

[gogsie]

I completely agree with Whiplash, our machine shop is nearly all Mori Seiki. As for them not being from home, a company called Pollards is a distributer in the uk there web site is

http://www.mtta-importers.org.uk

give it a look before you make your final decision.

 

[Yahnozha]

I have a Citizen B12 and have been using it for 5 years now. I havent run into many issues with holding tolerances over long runs and we machine 0.064" 316L SS Ground stock on a daily basis. I will say that the Citizen is kinda finiky and needs attention when working with stuff that small. On larger items (Max bar is 0.5&quot there is not a problem Ive come accross. I am extremely satisified with it.

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

http://www.hasscnc.com

Good luck with your quest.

 

Hi leo1
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 .

 

[knobhead]

DMG Maho's are great, and if they're anything like the old-school Maho's they'll last for ever. We have one that is 25 years old and still extrememly accurate.

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.