Fryer Mills

[HevyMetl]

We are currently looking at an all purpose tool room mill. One with a quill for manual ops and repairs, as well as CNC capabilities mold base work. The mold base work will require the machine to have some rigidity

 

Has anyone ran or worked with a Fryer Mill? This one seems to be topping the list we have developed. It has and ANIMLAM-FRYER 3000 control on it.

 

Any other comments or suggestions would be appriciated.

[Jimmy Wakeford from Barefoot CNC]

We have quite a few customers running these, and they are quite satisfied with them. Another bonus is the fact that the post on the cd works great.

[HevyMetl]

Thanks,

 

It never hurts to hear someone else's expierences. Are they using them in production or for "this and that" jobs.

[Jimmy Wakeford from Barefoot CNC]

Mainly this and that jobs, but a few are running limited production on them (10-30 pcs). Once you get used to the quill it is a nice machine.

[L Hanft]

Check out Milltronics. http://milltronics.net/

[HevyMetl]

Thanks,

 

I pulled the flyers and will bring it up in the next shop meeting.

[SledGeek]

We have a couple Fryers. VB50 and MB14 with Anilam 3300MK controller.

These are 6-7 years old and have been on routine pm's for about 5 years. They hold out pretty good for light duty and light production. The only problems we have had are the bearings in the head (3 times) and the y axis belt and gears(twice).

In my opinion the VB50 is alot more machine for the bucks. Better speeds and feeds and rigidity. Cuts aluminum pretty well with high helix two flute carbide.

Interpolation abilities for precision holes deteriorates fairly fast.4-5 years and lucky to hold .003-.004 on location and out of round.

 

Good luck

[IZN]

We have 3 Fryar M300's with Anilam 5300 controls. We've had them for about 4 years and they are fairly reliable. The biggest problem we have is, the nylon bushing in the variable speed head melts down occasionally.

As far as the Anilam control goes, it's one of the most user friendly controls, I've ever used.

[HevyMetl]

Thanks for the info.

 

For all of you guys with the machines how do you find Fryer's support?

 

We are going through this big discussion here right now about fixed head vs. quill. We only have room and electrcity left for one machine. I really feel we need and all encompassing machine (when ran properly) so we can do our small repairs (ie removing broken bolts, busted horn pins, ect) and still be able to set it up to drill ejector pin holes and waterlines.

[IZN]

We have quills on all our machines and have yet to use them. Although the handle for the quill is an excellent place to mount a dust collecter hose.

Do you mean support for the control? I always go directly to Anilam with any control issues.

[Phil Orenstein]

I worked on a new Fryer MB-14 with Anilam 3300MK control and an old VB-40 with Anilam 1400M control. Both had 40 x 20 travel.

 

The MB14 had a retractible Quill which I did not like because positioning accuracy seemed dependent upon the hand force it took to retract to the top stop. The rachet type drawbar was a nuisance becuase it had worn down the threads enough to be replaced every 3 months. The optional 6 pack on the bed tool changer malfunctioned consistently and sometimes crashed tools into one another. The Anilam control also had issues. Thats the bad news. The good news is that is was very user friendly, had some nice quick conversational macros, a 500 MB hard drive for and it had good accuracy. It was useful to me as a shop mill but at 45K you could do better.

 

The VB40 did not sport a friendly Anilam control and was basically in a state of disrepair.

 

HTH

Phil

[HevyMetl]

Thanks,

 

IZN and Phil what were you cutting on the MB14?

 

 

Phil,was the accuracy tied to the quill scale or was the quill drifting in the cut due to cutting forces? Which machine do you think is better for the money?

[IZN]

We cut green carbide on our machines. If you're not familiar with green carbide, It's a grey chalky powdered metal. There is virtually no cutting force exerted on the machine, so I couldn't tell you how rigid these machines really are.

[HevyMetl]

Thanks but there will be none of that here. I don't like carbide unless its on the wire.