Mori Quality

[MIL-TFP-41]

I can understand being sour on Methods, but why Matsuura?

Long story. Being passed between 2 companies for support was a headache to say the least. And while Matsuura USA has made some ground, their service engineers are still behind a HUGE learning curve. With Methods, you had 30+ years of tribal knowledge. They have lost that for the most part. The Japanese guys are amazingly smart, but also amazingly busy. We had an issue with our MAM...it got "bumped" out of square. We had a couple of guys come in...they would work on it a few days, then leave, never getting the thing back to spec...always just enough to get it running. Finally out of frustration myself and another guy spent a week dialing the machine back in. In the process we found some things that Methods did that was "shade tree" mechanic ish.....Things that no doubt hindered the progress of the Matsuura guys in their troubleshooting.

 

realigning the machine was a PITA, but a good experience. You learn real quick that little errors stack up to something huge when working with a 5 axis. Plus it gave us a reason to buy a few more tools and break out some of the lesser used ones...test bars, Renishaw ML10 laser....the fun stuff....

[Bob W.]

When I was shopping for machines a few years ago I was looking at the H-plus 405 H plus 300, NH 4000, NHX 4000, and A51nx.  I quickly came to the conclusion that the NHX was a budget machine and was not in the same class as the others.  The NH 4000 couldn't have the control upgraded to 5-axis in the field and was considerably more expensive than the A51nx.  The H-plus had the smallest work envelope and was much more expensive.  Early on the NHX was out fo the running.  There was a shop owner in the market for a machine to replace his 2011 NHX and Makino brought him by my shop to have a look at my A51.  What a bummer to buy a machine like that in 2011 and already need to replace it.  Apparently it was junk and I'm glad I didn't go that direction because I'm  sure I would have regretted it.  The price was attractive though but so is the price of Haas machines...

[Guest]

Long story. Being passed between 2 companies for support was a headache to say the least. ...

 

... In the process we found some things that Methods did that was "shade tree" mechanic ish.....Things that no doubt hindered the progress of the Matsuura guys in their troubleshooting.

 

realigning the machine was a PITA, but a good experience. You learn real quick that little errors stack up to something huge when working with a 5 axis. Plus it gave us a reason to buy a few more tools and break out some of the lesser used ones...test bars, Renishaw ML10 laser....the fun stuff....

 

Sorry to hear that man. I have no doubt that there were some things done in certain territories that were shall we say not as above board as perhaps should be. We were lucky. We were a full service dealer (Sales, Service, and Applications) so we never even let anyone other than Factory support anywhere near our customers and even then, they were escorted by our company personnel. Hey, our customers are like family to many of us. :

 

Well, I'll always help wherever I can. :

[Sticky]

The whole Methods/Matsuura divorce fiasco soured us on both companies. This is a reason we picked up a NH5000.....and it is a superior machine to the one sitting right next to it, an H-Plus 405. (The NH is a 2012 machine, the H-plus is 2011, so its a apples to apples comparison) Now that I am seeing the NH line is going to sh!t....

 

Can one even get a NH in the states now? All I see is the NHX line.....still waiting for some opinions on the NH vs the NHX

 

I thought the NH line has been gone in North America for a few years now?

 

What makes the NH5000 superior to the Hplus405?

 

 

When I was shopping for machines a few years ago I was looking at the H-plus 405, NH 4000, NHX 4000, and A51nx.  I quickly came to the conclusion that the NHX was a budget machine and was not in the same class as the others.  The NH 4000 couldn't have the control upgraded to 5-axis in the field and was considerably more expensive than the A51nx.  The H-plus had the smallest work envelope and was much more expensive.  Early on the NHX was out fo the running.  There was a shop owner in the market for a machine to replace his 2011 NHX and Makino brought him by my shop to have a look at my A51.  What a bummer to buy a machine like that in 2011 and already need to replace it.  Apparently it was junk and I'm glad I didn't go that direction because I'm  sure I would have regretted it.  The price was attractive though but so is the price of Haas machines...

 

Pretty sure the Hplus 405 has the largest work envelope of all of those machines?

[MIL-TFP-41]

I thought the NH line has been gone in North America for a few years now?

 

What makes the NH5000 superior to the Hplus405?

 

Nothing $$$ can't fix. Main thing is chip evacuation. The H-Plus did not come with chip augers and the stock conveyor it came with is a hunk of sh!t. Why Matsuura even offers a horizontal machine (or maybe why did Methods import a machine) that does not come standard with chip augers is beyond me. Just coolant running down the troughs is how its supposed to get rid of chips. I was not here when the machine was specd out, so the stock chip conveyor might be considered an oversight. That damn thing puts as many chips into the tank as it does into the bin. So doing any kind of roughing with this machine you stop every few minutes to shove chips down the troughs. If you run a corncob style rougher to help break the chips so they flush easier they fall through the damn conveyor and fill the coolant tank up...so you gotta pull the tank, drain the coolant, remove chips...repeat.

 

The Mori came standard with the ability to remove chips & has a good conveyor.

 

Side by side...the Matts is a faster machine...till you gotta shovel chips.

 

To get the Matts equipped with augers is $13,000. A good conveyor is another $24,000. Downtime for installation, ect....you are going to be north of $40K for what this machine should of been equipped with stock. The guy who signs the checks...well his attitude is you can shovel a sh!tload of chips for $40k. And rightfully so, as the Matts was a much more expensive machine out of the box.

 

So maybe its not fair to put it on Matsuura. Methods should of never imported a machine not optioned right.

[Sticky]

Yeah I've never understood why any hmc would be sold without a proper micro fine chip conveyor. Makino really has a nice design in this area, there isn't a telescoping cover in the center of the Z axis, and the chip conveyor is the trough, much like a lathe.

 

Aside from lack of chip evacuation, how would you compare accuracy and the spindles between the two?

[Bob W.]

I thought the NH line has been gone in North America for a few years now?

 

What makes the NH5000 superior to the Hplus405?

 

 

 

Pretty sure the Hplus 405 has the largest work envelope of all of those machines?

You are correct, I was looking at the H-plus 300, not the 405.

[Newbeeee™]

Where I used to work we had a H+300 11 pallet with a 15k spindle.

The thing was awesome - we had 400 size pallets on it.

We  could bore a hole at B0, index 180 and bore through and you could not see any 'join' whatsoever.

 

We also had a FX5 & R+800 (20k spindles) and 2x of the most beat up second hand 550 verticals (8k spindles) you could ever set your eyes on, and they were the most accurate things in the shop.

The FX5 was my favourite (from a machine p0rn viewpoint... )

[MIL-TFP-41]

Aside from lack of chip evacuation, how would you compare accuracy and the spindles between the two?

The Mori has a 14K spindle & the Matts has a 20k. Obviously the Mori has more low end "oomph". I don't like the coolant thru the flange on the Mori. That being said it works.

The taper on the Mori spindle is not as deep....as in the small end of the taper has a larger ID on the mori spindle. So less taper contact due to less length of taper. We have seen no issues with rigidity tho.

As far as accuracy....Its pretty much a toss up between the two. Both when combined with their probe are spot on. The Matsuura is a little more picky about it being leveled, no beef there as that's not a daily maintenance item.

 

The Matsuura is a faster machine when it comes to complex surfacing (Note both controllers are optioned very close to the same). Seems like Matsuura has spent more time tweaking and tuning their flavor of AICC2. When running the Mori at lower "R" levels the thing bounces like a jackhammer....the accell/decell's are that violent. So we don't run it at lower R levels.

 

The Matsuura is a good machine....that whole chip evacuation issue is the killer and its not a small issue.

 

I am not surprised to hear that the NHX is more of a throw away machine. After shoving things like DCG in our face for 2 years, they went totally away from that design. Still I see the NH series are available pretty much everywhere but North America, where it seems the NHX is the only option. I can say that the NH on our floor is solid as they come.

[Guest]

Unfortunately Matsuura did not have much control over how that machine was imported. They sent what their customer (read importer) ordered.

 

West of the Mississippi and south of the Mason-Dixon we line do things a little different than the yanks to the north. The don't see a whole lot of "... let's take this 800lb billet down to about 15lbs..." : Whereas us... we eat that $#!+ for breakfast.

 

[dstryr]

Unfortunately Matsuura did not have much control over how that machine was imported. They sent what their customer (read importer) ordered.

 

West of the Mississippi and south of the Mason-Dixon we line do things a little different than the yanks to the north. The don't see a whole lot of "... let's take this 800lb billet down to about 15lbs..." : Whereas us... we eat that $#!+ for breakfast.

 

Thats the name of my game....

[Josh Kinney -Elite Engineering]

Feel free to PM me so we dont hijack thread.

This is eMastercam. Thread hijacking is expected....

[Brad Lisle]

We have an office in Kent, WA with an LB3000-EX-MYW on the floor right now. Please let me know if you are interested in looking at it. I can put you in contact with a local sales rep if you would like.

 

Brad