Makino 14k or 20k spindle???

[SydwazShawn]

We are looking @ buying the Makino D500, with the 12 pallet stacker system. This will be our first automated cell machine, so getting the details correct can be tricky.

 

We are torn on weather to get the 14k, or the 20k spindle. There are pros and cons for each. Most of our work is alum. Occasionally we do 316 sst and titanium. Since not all our work will be 5axis work we are going to use this machine like a horizontal for fill in work.

 

We have herd that the 14k is a great spindle, but the people that have them say they run out of rpm. We do a fair amount of stitch work but also a lot of hogging as well. We are not sure exactly what kind of work this machine will bring us, so we are thinking the 14k is the safe approach because its well rounded. On the other hand if we had the 20k spindle our run times would be faster on the smaller tools, but we are concerned about the torque curve.

 

We also thought why not get the 14k to start, then maybe down the road with another machine get the 20k. I’m not sure that having two different machines in the cell system would be easy to manage.

 

If anyone has any experience with this and can give insight I would really appreciate it.

 

Thanks, Shawn

 

P.S. We run the 30hp Haas 10k spindles now. Not sure how they compare because I cant find a torque table for the Haas.

[specv]

We have a FMS system with 1 a77 and 3 a66's

2 of those a66 have the 14k spindle and the 3rd a66 had the 20k spindle. the 20k is much lighter duty and it was crashed once and was replaced with a 14k spindle. It was a pain in the butt to have 3 machines alike except for the spindle because we had a hard time scheduling for each machine depending on if it needed the higher rpm's.

 

So we had to slow down some jobs if the 20k was backlogged. When we got the new 14k spindle we gain a ton of time because we had our choice of 3 machines instead of backlogging 1 machine just to get a faster run time.

 

In a perfect world you could rough with the 14k and finish with the 20k but you will run into scheduling problems.

 

My advice is to make sure you get the same spindle in all machines. either 14k or 20k

 

As far as the torque curve I don't remember it being an issue for aluminum which is about all we do other than some stainless.

 

I can give more info if you need it.

HTH

[Rick Henrickson The Boeing Co.]

where I use to work A77 all 20k and wished we had more all Aluminum though

[SydwazShawn]

Well that’s what I have been told on different spindles in the cell as well. It could cause to be a pain trying to change the programs feeds for each machine and schedule them.

 

Thanks for your input guys. Hopefully more can chime in.