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Help me pick out a machine or two?


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My biggest client is thinking of buying a machine or two, which I would be responsible for programming, setting up, and for longer running and repeating stuff training in an operator.  Current parts for their product line are small medical device parts, Ti, stainless, PEEK, and on a few of them I'm making good use of the 50K RPM I have on the CM-1, halving cycle time over doing them on a 15K RPM machine.  95% 3 axis, 5% 4 axis.  I'm also doing some small mold blocks, 3" x 3.5" x 1" thk, cavities requiring tools down to .010", and the outside of those blocks takes forever on the CM-1.  I'd have a heck of a time doing cooling lines on it if later molds require them.  I've advised him that I think another CM-1 (4 ax) for the tiny stuff plus a VF-2 or VM-2 (4/5 ax) for the bigger stuff would meet current needs well.  A sinker would really help if we do many more molds.  Our local Haas rep and HFO (Productivity) has been great, so I'm inclined to stick with them; they also rep Matsuura.

He also wants to consider stepping up from Haas, so we're looking at Matsuura, Okuma, etc., and he'd like to have decent 5 ax capability so as to be able to take on fancier work in the future.  I've heard not-so-good things about Haas' UMC line, but I was fairly pleased with the 2015 VF-3SS with a trunnion that I used for six years.  My concern with putting all the money into a higher end machine is that we'd get less productivity vs two cheaper machines, plus it would have to be a jack-of-all-trades machine instead of two with different optimizations.

What do you guys think we should be looking at?

 

Thanks!

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9 hours ago, Matthew Hajicek - Singularity said:

Not sure the top end, but he wasn't squirming at the talk of a $550K machine.

IMHO I would do everything you can to get into a higher end machine with automation. ROI comes pretty fast when you are running 20 hrs a day making perfect parts.

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