thanks again for the help everyone. I am having a rough go with these salesmen. Either I cant get an answer out of them on anything or they have nothing to offer me, shopping for used stuff sucks! Should I just buy a Haas... I found a really odd machine called Emerge, its a VCM roller way machine with a 31i or 18i. Its a brand new 2009, the story is a company called microcut in Taiwan partnered with Milltronics to sell these machines only when the bottom fell out in 09 the line was discontinued and a distributor has been holding on to it since. Its a fast machine with a 15k direct drive spindle, side mount, TSC, conveyor, but I havent been able to find any info on what options the control might have. The machine retailed for $92k and is now $62k, seems like a good deal for a new machine with some really nice features and it looks like it has milltronics parts. I am not too interested but sort of intrigued. Common sense tells me that this machine could potentially be a huge pain in the a**! check it out http://www.ebay.com/itm/EMERGE-CNC-Vertical-Machining-Center-Fanuc-18i-/130524993529?pt=BI_Mills&hash=item1e63e557f9#ht_730wt_952 Question time Does a Haas come standard with decent accel/decell or is there only contour control in there HSM option? GO LIONS!

Everyone thank you for the wealth of info. So I am sort of feeling a bit unsure if buying one of these is the right thing, especially for a one man, one machine (allready) shop who cant afford to have a service guy sleeping in the parking lot. Now I am not against buying other brands, but on paper the Hardinge's look great...do I reconsider? Now I am sort of shook up at the thought of holes coming out of round by .025" just by leading on at an odd angle and the spindle stalling during a high feed op. What would happen if I was to profile the outside of a shape and I had a lead on at some odd angle perpendicular to a tangent point? (some sort of swoopy shape). But in the machines defense I have stalled a spindle using a 2" Ingersoll powerfeed high feed cutter in 1018 on a 2006 Vf-2SS. So let me ask you this, in my searching for info I found a hand full of '05, '06, and '07 760XP3's and 1000XP3's. They all have 18i controls, 12k spindles, through spindle and are less expensive than the original 1000XV that started this post ($35-55k). I inquired and I received serial numbers while the salesman is rounding up hours and pics. Most are bank owned for a former business (RIP). So what wins the race for me a 300 hour entry level XV (per Hardinge brochure) or a presumably higher hour XP3 (from what I understand is their old higher model)? Two more... Does anyone have an opinion or experience with the XP3 series? And once I have all of the info from the salesman what do I do, call Hardinge for service records and book a flight for a inspection... Thank you again

I have never used the g05 command, what feed rate would you normally turn it on with these machines? Also how do the XV, XP3, GX, and XR machines stack up against each other? I have a line on a almost new XV1000 and a couple of higher hours 760XP3 and I am wondering what is a better deal. What type of problems should I expect to encounter? Thank you

Does anyone have any opinions or experience with this line of machine or any of the Hardinge/Bridgeport vertical mills? I have been looking at used machines and they seem like a good bang for the buck with lots of options. Also whats up with the Fanuc OI-MC control? Is it any good, how is the high speed look ahead and accel/decell? I do mostly 3D surfacing and would like a machine with good motion control. And I know that there are a lot of good machine brands out there but could we please keep the topic on these machines and keep this from turning into a who is better conversation. Thank you very much.

Thanks for the replies. We actually decided to send the part out and have some of the work done to the part and we are going to finish all of the details on that machine. Man so close to actually having a part that "is perfect for the integrex" Anyone else having problems finding the right work for multitasking machines.

Good morning, The company that I work for wants to put a 16" dia x 22.25" long piece of 4340 into the 18" chuck on our E420hs integrex. Is this possible to hold on to without support? If we try to face it will it get kicked out of the jaws? I figured that it weighs 1250lbs. It looks like we are going to be able to get some steel jaws around the part but not hard jaws. Anyone ever turn anything this big on a similar sized lathe. Thanks in advance

The company that I work for purchased some new Mazaks including an E420hs integrex (the one more like a mill) we are trying to learn the function of the machine. We are struggling with the tool data among other things. Can someone give some pointers for defining turning tools for EIA programming? I am having trouble understanding how the control looks at tool nose radius. Another prob is when boring on the sub spindle the bore will be twice the radius of the tool nose undersized. Even when the tool is probed in the correct orientation and then the head rotated to B80. Any help is appreciated. Thanks Kyle

The company that I work for purchased some new Mazaks including an E420hs integrex (the one more like a mill) we are trying to learn the function of the machine. We are struggling with the tool data among other things. Can someone give some pointers for defining turning tools for EIA programming? I am having trouble understanding how the control looks at tool nose radius. Another prob is when boring on the sub spindle the bore will be twice the radius of the tool nose undersized. Even when the tool is probed in the correct orientation and then the head rotated to B80. Any help is appreciated. Thanks Kyle

Anybody have any advice for designing a vac plate. I have some designs that I would like to perfect before the opourtuinity to make them ever comes around.

Are there any sort of guidelines or rules of thumb for vacuum fixturing. I had a nylon job that was 1/2" thick and about 12x3". I figured that there would have been about 12in.2 area inside the o-ring it come out to like 120-180 pounds of force holding the part. Would this be enough to keep the part from moving while side milling and drilling from the side (on a tombstone in a horizontal). Also is it a must to have a constant supply of vac. from the pump to the fixture or would a vac. resivour be suficient to hold the parts for the machining cycle.

Ours is brand new, we are taking the bull by the horns and starting off with the hard machining processes first. Logical right. The machine is a 730-5x II, so there is no way to say put it in to some kind of grind mode and spin the table at say 300 RPM.

Has anybody ever tried this before? They say that it is possible, does anyone know the preparitory codes to do such a thing. Does the machine have turning cycles like a turning center or any way of running the table at an RPM. Thank you.

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