5 axis mill or lathe

[Lathe-Mill]

the company is looking to buy a 5 axis center, the parts that will be running in this machine are round parts with multiple start threads (4 nad 5), flats, tappers, tap holes, tabs, slots pockets and camslots,etc.

concentricity with in .001 also paralell and flatness, the whole 9 yards, my question is what will be the best machine center to make such of parts?

any advice will be welcome.

thanx.

[Harryman]

I can't tell from your description if you want to turn or not. If so, go ahead and look at the MKIII Integrex. The early one is not too accurate, but our new one is pretty good.

[chris m]

In this part of the country [which Carlos is in] I would NEVER buy a Mazak. We had an Integrex 300SY in here for a turnkey part than NEVER passed acceptance [this was a 2-year debacle] and EVERYONE from Mazak up here proved to be completely incompetent when it came to this machine. There seem to be about 2 guys in the whole country from Mazak that actually know how to run this machine and they both are 'unavailable' whenever you need them. If you look at an Integrex I'll be happy to put you in contact with some local guys who have them and you can hear what they have to say.

 

I have heard very good things about the Mori-Seiki machines of this style; both the machine tool itself and the Mastercam / machine relationship. Okuma and Nakamura-Tome also make very nice multi-function machines so I'd give Morris and Methods a call, too.

 

C

[Lathe-Mill]

chris, sorry i didn't answer your question earlier, right now every single machine builder in on the list, we are looking at a multitasking or multiaxis lathe, and so far i've seen that hardinge, okuma, morie seiki (websites), are the ones with such of machine, but if anyone out there has another machine company that makes one please let me know. thanx.

[GVM]

Also look at DMG. I have one of there Universal (2 axis) lathes and am very happy with it. The link to there multi-axis lathes is http://www.gildemeister.com/us/gmx

[jeff]

Okuma and Mori lathes are excellent quality.

It's hard to go wrong with either.

[Lathe-Mill]

kool machine gary, me like it alot.

thanx

[CNCGUY]

You may also want to look at Nakamura Tome. We take delivery of our first one (twin/twin) tomorrow.

 

Good Luck !!!!!

[Lathe-Mill]

cncguy, looks nice...

thanx

[chris m]

Troy, let me know how that machine runs for you; that link you sent me looked SWEET

 

Carlos, Methods is a really good outfit and they have a LOT of machines in their showroom in Sudbury, MA that you can take a look at. I was over there in the summer and they had both types of machines you're thinking about under power and making chips

 

C

[Lathe-Mill]

I do like it very much, i will try to get my boss to go. i want to see it in action

[Lathe-Mill]

does anyone knows the machine puma series mx 2000 / 2500 from daewoo?

any info will be appreciated.

thanx

[Lathe-Mill]

does anyone here runs a twin turn hardinge ( multiaxis machine center )?

just like to have some info, bad or good.thanx.

[McRae]

http://www.weingartner.com/

[notso]

We have had a couple of older dual turret hardinge lathes. They were everyones favorites for years. But they have both died w/in the last year and parts & service for them is non-existent. We looked at the new Hardinge lathes when the descition was made to replace one of the old ones but we ended up going w/ the Mori. Still figuring out the new machine, but so far, so good.

[chris m]

I have 2 'regular' Hardinge Conquest CNC lathes and while the machines are OK [though weak for even mildly aggressive machining] service and parts through Hardinge suck. I believe that forum member mike f has a Daewoo machine like you're talking about; maybe you can try to hook up with him on that. As far as service and applications support go, Okuma, Mori-Seiki, and Nakamura-Tome have very good representation in New England with Robert E. Morris, Tyler Machine, and Methods, respectively. I'd go with any of those guys and feel very comfortable.

 

C

[Lathe-Mill]

we had okuma - daewoo - hardinge here at the company, today we have i think mori seiki coming in, hopefully by the middle of next month someone here has made a decision, we need a machine making parts by the end of june 2005.

 

notso, is the mori multitask lathe?

[Lathe-Mill]

chris, who is mike f. , where is he located

[chris m]

Here's his profile:

 

mike_f profile

 

He's a good guy; shoot him an email

 

C

[notso]

Lathe-Mill,

We ended up getting a used SL-153 MC. Ended up paying about $80K for it. It has live tooling and a c-axis, but that's it. It is a 2000 model but had less than 1000 hrs on it. MSG-501 controller (that's the Mori model # made by Fanuc). Everything we could dig up said nothing but good things about the Mori's and so far we have no complaints. The generic Fanuc post was pretty close (just didn't include some of the live tooling canned cycles, rigid tapping etc). Super easy/fast set-up. The tool setter arm is bad a$$, standard tools (rough & finish turn etc) do not need to be "picked up" on new setups unless you remove the holder from the turret. J&H tool out of Charlotte NC has been nothing but helpful w/ all of our questions and tooling needs even though we didn't buy the machine from them.

 

I have seen demos from the Multi-tasking Mori and it looked incredible. I think the price for the full on dual-spindle, 5 axis job is only around $200k (alot cheaper than the Mazak) and after looking at both (my old shop was in the market for a multi-tasking machine), I felt like the Mori was a better machine.

[Lathe-Mill]

thanx chris, thanx notso for all the info..

I got to say, i was impress with the mori seiki machine after the meeting

[whirly_gig]

currently have 5 mori's at different levels, one being full blown 2-spindle 2-turret and I have to say they are great. The only negative is the controls upgrade so often that all 5 have different controls and they are all less than 5yrs old.

[CNCGUY]

--Update--

 

The machine (Nakamura TW-20) has been on our floor for about a month now. We've had minor issues with the LNS Quicksix barfeeder and the machine - all in all, we are very happy and impressed.

 

My goal is for the operator to set tools, top-cut on the feeder, and push cycle start !!!!!!

 

I have modified the post to set G54 and G55 on both spindles with G10. All right spindle pickoff and transfer values are loaded as variables (misc. real). We have sub programs for cutoff and transfer to make programming easier (wait codes and such).

 

I have succesfully posted and run 2 programs so far with no edits after posting.

 

So far its going good - but its been a lot of work!!!

[chris m]

Hey Troy

 

Glad to hear that things are going well with the machine; looked like a sweet piece.

 

I run a sub for bar change / top cut too, you might want to try it at some point; what I do is cutoff every part the same distance from the collet so I just shift Z0 to that point when the LNS loads a new bar, face off to that point, and then have the feeder push out to the 'run' distance as if I just cut a part off. Works pretty slick.

 

C

[mats_asson]

Hi

 

I just have to say that our Index G200:s are great machines. We bought our first one with Y- and B-axis back in 1994. It still has the same accuracy and temp. stability as when it was new. There are some new Index models that are bigger than ours. Check out index-traub.de our our web site www.mecona.se. They are expensive but worth their price if you have precision work.