Thoughts on Makino PS95

[Bob W.]

I am considering replacing my Haas VM3 with a Makino PS95. My other mill is a Makino A51-nx horizontal with the Pro5 control and I would like to make everything in the shop Makino (no swapping pull studs, higher productivity, etc...) I absolutely love the Pro5 control and they way it handles tools and tool offsets (and everything else) and I am curious how the PS95's ProP control compares. It is hard to get a straight answer out of Makino so I would like some input from shops that actually have both and can make a direct comparison. What are the shortcomings of the ProP vs the Pro5? The ProP is Makino's front end for the Fanuc 0M I believe.

 

My goal for the PS95 would be large aluminum mold work and taking some of the production overflow from the A51 when it is buried (currently 2 months out...). The Haas is such a step back in part quality, speed, and accuracy that I will not even go there. Any other thoughts on the PS95 regarding rigidity, speed, reliability, user-friendliness, etc... Any input would be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Bob

[Redfire427]

You would love the PS95. It is a fantastic machine that comes well equipped, in fact, there really are no options. The control is a little simpler than the pro5, but the only drawback I found was that is has no data server, meaning that you have to put the NC machine file on a flash card, and the control reads directly off the flash card. It works great and is awesome for high-speed toolpaths. Scary-fast machine. Standard thru-tool coolant and chip conveyors make it really nice. The machine design and layout was obviously done with the operator in mind. The HAAS ............. what a piece of garbage in comparison. The cost of the Makino is very attractive.

 

Carmen

[mkd]

Haas fanboy alert:

if you want the best performance you can go ahead and pay for it. you know what your business needs.

 

personally, i would want 2 Haas VM3s working for the price of one PS95.

the Haas' have more travel and virtually the same spindle performance, which means for ripping material off you will get double the performance for the price. the ball screws on both machines may (i don;t actually know) be made in the same Japanese factory.

yes, the axis acceleration rates are slow on the Haas 'cause of the little motors. so if there was some critical surfaces i would just run slower feedrates. with two spindles going this it seems to still be a better ROI.

 

guess i'm weird, i like double the bang for the buck.

[Thee Rickster ™]

We have both the a-51 and the ps-95,

We also have 18 various Haas mills.

Go Makino's and don't look back!

 

We run production casting machining and we just

Take a set up move it to either machine and the program

Run 25 % faster!!!!!

 

The difference is if you like fast and way more accurate

and consistency, stay with and buy more Makiono's

If you want slow, semi reliable, crappy tool changers and less

Accuracy, stay with Hass.

We put our high priority and more important jobs on

our Makino's.

 

There is no comparison IMO so no need to justify a comparison

[Newbeeee™]

As Rick says, you do get what you pay for.

Our robodrills run way quicker than our chevalier's because of acc/dec and toolchange.

Previous place we had Matsuura's, and same again applied when moving jobs onto them from Hitachi's. High-end machines = faster cycle times.

The one BIG difference is how fast you can accurately feed on a 'tuned' high-end machine. It's not just about lifting and shifting jobs from one to another, get the feed up and this also makes a hell of a difference.

[mkd]

Run 25 % faster!!!!!

slow, semi reliable, crappy tool changers

ouch, that hurts the fanboy! oh ya, the semi reliable thing. true

interesting to know the difference, thanks

[Bob W.]

Haas fanboy alert:

if you want the best performance you can go ahead and pay for it. you know what your business needs.

 

personally, i would want 2 Haas VM3s working for the price of one PS95.

the Haas' have more travel and virtually the same spindle performance, which means for ripping material off you will get double the performance for the price. the ball screws on both machines may (i don;t actually know) be made in the same Japanese factory.

yes, the axis acceleration rates are slow on the Haas 'cause of the little motors. so if there was some critical surfaces i would just run slower feedrates. with two spindles going this it seems to still be a better ROI.

 

guess i'm weird, i like double the bang for the buck.

 

I felt the same way until I bought a Makino. Yep, three times the price for the horizontal but more than three times the productivity. The Haas is looking like the most costly machine I have ever owned, even though it was the least expensive. Looking at the two side by side makes me laugh, then I get mad because I paid good money for the Haas POS.

[Cannon]

Can I ask what is the price for that kind of Makino?

[Redfire427]

We paid $135K for our PS95 last year. Outstanding machine.

[mkd]

We paid $135K for our PS95 last year. Outstanding machine.

 

holy moly!!!!!!! thats 135 canadian, not US right?

135 US i wouldn't see the point of going new Haas.

hmmm.

 

. Yep, three times the price for the horizontal

i've seen the haas horz. in action. kind of a joke. wait til the cows come home rotary speed.

 

 

most costly machine I have ever owned,

interested to know how. cost of maintenance or slower productivity? both?

[Joe788]

holy moly!!!!!!! thats 135 canadian, not US right?

135 US i wouldn't see the point of going new Haas.

hmmm.

 

 

I have an email from last October from the Makino dealer about the PS95,

 

FEATURES

• 14,000 RPM
  
• CT 40 Tooling
  
• 33.5 H.P.
  
• 30 Tool Swing Arm Tool Changer
  
• 1417 IPM Rapids
  
• Core Cooled Ball Screws (XYZ)
  
• Lift-up Chip Conveyor
  
• Dual Auger Chip Removal
  
• Chip Flush
  
• Spindle Temperature Controlled
  
• Coolant Thru the Spindle 435 PSI
  

Professional P CNC Controller

 

All listed features:

$134,500.00

 

Seems like a pretty decent deal.

[mkd]

Total Price: 96,180.00 USD haas build a quote VM2/ 111,780.00 VM3

30 x 20 travel (makino has 36? on x)

30 hp 12000rpm

40 tool side mount

300 psi thru spindle

[Bob W.]

interested to know how. cost of maintenance or slower productivity? both?

 

Cost of productivity. The Makino gets more done in less time than the Haas. The extra $1500 in the monthly payment is made up in a day or two with the Makino and that extra productivity is carried through the next 18 working days of the month. To duplicate that kind of productivity with a Haas I would need two more machines AND two more operators. Of course, this is comparing a horizontal (Makino) to a vertical (Haas) which is kind of apples to oranges. The icing on the cake is that with the improved productivity comes much nicer finish and better accuracy, and better tool life, etc...

[Redfire427]

holy moly!!!!!!! thats 135 canadian, not US right?

135 US i wouldn't see the point of going new Haas.

hmmm.

 

 

 

The Canadian dollar is higher, not lower, than the US dollar. At any rate, most machines are quoted in US dollars which works out to a few percent less in Canadian dollars.

[Thee Rickster ™]

ouch, that hurts the fanboy! oh ya, the semi reliable thing. true

interesting to know the difference, thanks

 

We have 18 other Hass cnc's here..... we wish they were Makino.

[mkd]

We have 18 other Hass cnc's here..... we wish they were Makino.

i wish to be driving a Porsche instead of my 12yr old Chevy

18 machines times $30-40k premium per = $540-720K

i could probably start 3+ new businesses with that kind of cash. or a few nice Horz. pallet machines.

 

i'm actually curious as to the productivity comparo between H & M verticals (not a silly pallet changer comparison). say 3d surface to to profile of .010"; how fast can you run the M Vs. H.

[Newbeeee™]

The old place we were running a Matsuura R800 at 20k rpm and 15 metre/min feeds waterlining in ally. The thing had a siemens 840D control and it was as sweet as, and soooooooooo acurate.

[Thee Rickster ™]

We run the same 2-d programs on our Hass to

The Makino's and its 25 % decrease in cycle times

 

Surfacing is not that drastic a decrease, about 10%.

 

To gain more then 10%, I have to use different software, which

Also deceass times on the Hass machines as well.

[Bob W.]

One major improvement I see with the Makino over the Haas is the control. I can do so much while the machine is running, without disturbing the spindle or work flow. I can load and unload tools, edit programs, stage programs in the DNC manager, and load programs without stopping the spindle. I also really like the way Makino handles the tools. Say I have a tap that is tool #356 for example. If I put that in the Makino in pocket 25, I tell the machine that tool 356 is in pocket 25. If I have three different programs that use that tool it will always grab it from pocket 25. In the Haas I can't do that. That tap might be loaded in the machine as tool 18 for one program and tool 25 for another program making it a real hassle to quickly switch from program to program when prototyping. I can squeeze in an extra job per day because it is so much more efficient to change over.

 

Regarding the finish, I am able to surface machine parts on the Makino that produce finishes that can be delivered to customers straight off the machine with no sanding or finish work. This is done after running at feed rates that are 30-40% faster than on the Haas. I have customers requesting that their parts be machined on the Makino specifically and I am able to beat my competitors handily in price because there is no additional labor in the parts once off the machine. These are cosmetic parts that might take 10 hours on the Haas and the Makino is finishing them in 5-6 hours.

 

Regarding accuracy, I have verified that the Haas will drift on the X and Y axes by up to .002" on surface machining jobs with a lot of motion. This is due to the ball screws heating up and it results in seams in the finish when coming back for rest milling etc... The spindle also grows by .002" if running for long periods of time at high rpm, and I have verified this as well. The Makino has cooled ball screws and a cooled spindle so this growth is kept to a minimum (.0001" - .0002") after long periods of running. Again, this minimizes post machining work and gets things out the door more quickly.

 

Regarding rigidity, I can remove material 2x as fast on the Makino than I can on the Haas. I have had to rethink my speeds and feeds that I use for roughing because feeds that would make the Haas scream like a banshee run whisper quiet on the Makino. In fact the Makino still runs whisper quiet at 2x the MRR of the Haas. I have verified this as well.

 

I have seen the light and I will never again buy another Haas. The Makino produces more income in the same time as a Haas. At a monthly payment difference of $$630, that works out to $31.50 per day for the Makino. What is one more job completed per day worth? Hope this helps.

[Thee Rickster ™]

Mmd, we bought 2, at when we first opened shop then about

1 every 6 month, as the business grew.

 

If they were Makino's , we all be paid more and would

Have paid them off quicker then any of the Hass

 

They wouldn't have scrapped as many castings due to

Accuracy and repeatability, that is a givin.

 

Nobody starts a business with 20 cnc's..... Lol

[mkd]

We run the same 2-d programs on our Hass to

The Makino's and its 25 % decrease in cycle times

 

Surfacing is not that drastic a decrease, about 10%.

 

To gain more then 10%, I have to use different software, which

Also deceass times on the Hass machines as well.

cool.

so if we were to call it a 15% productivity boost compounded yearly, with a one time 30% premium on the purchase. add to that less makino maintenance down time=makino is the easy winner. if you can afford to buy new or lucky enough to find one used (good luck with that).

 

nobody starts a business with 20 cnc's

up front or as you grow the total is the same.

[MotorCityMinion]

" nobody starts a business with 20 cnc's"

 

Agreed. That's what makes the Haas attractive. Decent starter machines and easy to learn. Most of our Haas's are worn out and have various problems that require work arounds but if 1 guy runs 2 machines and programs at the same time, those machines are making money, period. Could we make more? Sure and I'd rather be doing it with 2 Makinos, but it is what it is. I only get to use our Makino S56 for finish work and even with a 20k spindle we're still short on rpm's for some of what we do.

[Thee Rickster ™]

Correct!

 

The bank barley loan enuf money to get one HAs highspeed machine for the

molds and one for post casting production.

 

WE purchase a company that went south about 3 yrs after we open and they had

5 hass(3vfs and 1 vf6 and 2 voe. over the nest two or 3 years we bought 6 to 8 more machines.

 

When we move to our new plant 5 months ago we bought a brand new p95

and two weeks later found an auction that had a a51 and two more has VF3's. business is good

so the owners put all thier money into the company. to them!

 

So our plan is to, when we pay for all this is to build my tool room up with better machines and

more(not better) (different)software.

 

We still have room to expand in our new shop we just have to maximize capacity and capability with what we have and

decrease over head

 

up front or as you grow the total is the same.

yes but your prices are low, as we have many vf3's and 4 vf6's and half are high speed

is why I brought it up

 

 

The future is bright.

[Bob W.]

Say I have a tap that is tool #356 for example. If I put that in the Makino in pocket 25, I tell the machine that tool 356 is in pocket 25. If I have three different programs that use that tool it will always grab it from pocket 25.

 

Can anyone confirm that the PS95's ProP control handles tools this way? This is how I do things on the A51's Pro5 control and it is a key feature I am looking for on the PS95. The A51 comes with 999 tool offsets and the PS95 ships with 400 standard. Can it be upgraded to 999? Of course I have asked the salesman these things but one down side about Makino is they aren't very responsive to these sorts of questions, unless you are a fortune 500 company...

[Newbeeee™]

" nobody starts a business with 20 cnc's"

 

Agreed. That's what makes the Haas attractive. Decent starter machines and easy to learn. Most of our Haas's are worn out and have various problems that require work arounds but if 1 guy runs 2 machines and programs at the same time, those machines are making money, period. Could we make more? Sure and I'd rather be doing it with 2 Makinos, but it is what it is. I only get to use our Makino S56 for finish work and even with a 20k spindle we're still short on rpm's for some of what we do.

+100 -same as us. We didn't buy robodrills to start with because they were bloody expensive and limited on xyz envelope. So we bought the best value machines we could afford (chevalier) and gradually grew and then bought the robos when we could afford and new what work we had that would be ideal for them.

We doubled the factory crimbo last year, and I spent a couple of months going round in circles looking at what was the best way to grow/manage the business going forward. I was really close to going with a matsuura 405 (used) but in the end we decided to get another (x30") chevalier because it was affordable and we multi-man.

We're 4man as a company and quite often 1x will be running 3or4 machines each so the business makes money this way....simply and by multi-manning.

One thing I didn't want to do was go the bank loan route....had to do it on the 1st machine and then worked all hours etc to buy the 2nd 3rd etc outright. In the end it depends upon a lot of things and being able to sleep at nigth without thinking of the loan was also a major thing....albeit when I was sleeping the matsuura would have been making parts....