What would you buy DMG, Mazak or Haas

We are considering one of the following machines for R&D work cutting aluminum, steel and hardened steel (Rockwell 54). We need tight contouring tolerances across a 2-3 inch thick work piece.

The machines are a DMG DMC 835V, a Mazak 510C and one of the new Haas VF-3's with a premium spindle and a gear box.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated, Bill

Reply to
Bill
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The answer is:.............................

Hurco

Reply to
cncmillgil

ok smart ass milgil, readers digest version now, Hurco machine tool ......well ...... ok Ultamax Control=3D kickass, none I've seen an easier one to setup, program at the machine (in the background if necessary with machine running) with 2D dxf input- point,click - toopath DONE Yer cutin parts right the f*ck now! for 1sy 2 sies on the fly do it now. It is the manual machinist's best friend. Thats , Fanuc, Fadal, Okuma & Howa^2, Haas, Okk, Cincinnati, Bridgeport, Matsura, Tree, Dynapath, GE, Seimens, Mistsubishi, Mori & Seiki^2 , LaBlond& Makino^2, Roeders, experience speaking now. (i'm scaring myself because the bad memories are coming back) especially the Roeders , what a cluster f*ck for such a high precision machine tool.

Damn no DMG or Mazak thou.............. I missed out on those. But I did know some Mazak guys, & they liked their "mazatrol" software. All I've done is G-code to'em from masterscam & cimatron- mills that is. I know mazaks are strong machine tools. software & controls? hmmm. Problaby need to have "somescam" software to mak'r run. Unless your a TI calculator wizz & have memorized trig functions to feed it points your SOL w/o somscam.

Yup for R&D work Hurco would be my choice , considering that I may be partial to Hurco because I run a few for a living.

As far as lathe machine tools IMO Mori's take the cake in the production world.

just my 2cents now , worth only a penny - & those are my thoughts.

Reply to
cncmillgil

Thanks for your thoughts. CAM no problem, we are using SolidCAM inside of SolidWorks and currently running a Haas VF2-SS. It just doesn't have the torque and rigidity to cut hard steel.

I am looking for a rigid platform and high accuracy.

Reply to
Bill

Bill wrote in news:83d8fba8-90c0-4c4d-bc89- snipped-for-privacy@y32g2000prc.googlegroups.com:

As long as I'm spending your money -

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Reply to
D Murphy

Ya just cant rip through stock with a light duty type machine just because some sales looser says you can with his or her's tooling speeds/feeds & scam program. Here's where skilled machinist techniques come into play. It takes some trial & error when using linear way- belt drive spindle machines. Its like apples to oranges comparing to a box way- gear drive head machine. sounds like a tooling/process -program problem to me? less ridgid machine=3D smaller cuts with $high positive$ tooling. you did say R&D right?

Unless your cutting +-.0002 all day, most all NEW current CNC's will give good accuracy. I would be looking at cost effective & bang for your buck. Sounds like you have to make prototype parts - nice ones. So it takes a bit longer machine time. Big deal. 1sy 2sy 3sy parts are big PITA. The time is saved in Hurco world to get it in the machine & make the spindle run as fast as possible, in the 2D lathe & 3X mill world that is.

5X mills - Live tooling mill turn lathes w sub spindles, C & Y axis - different story.

I'd get a new Hurco (cheap) , if it does what you want & the work pans out to higher volume production - dump the Hurco in a few years & upgrade. Hell you could buy 2 Hurcos for the cost of a nice tooled Mori. Your only cutting Al & under 55Rc (soft by todays standards) steel. Don't get carried away with $brick shit house$ machines till high volume contracts of parts are secured.

Good luck & let us know what you decide on.

Reply to
cncmillgil

Bill, I've got a handful of friends with Mazak 510C machines, and they all love them. After some haggling, they are barely more expensive than a similarly equipped Haas VF3SS. If you wait a little bit, any new machine you buy coming out of Kentucky will have linear roller guides instead of linear ball bearing guides. The Matrix control already has just about every option you could ever want, including

20gb of hard drive storage for running huge programs. The only control option you need is MAZACC3D for fast, accurate 3d motion of fine line segments. Also, make sure you get a Renishaw tool length setter, because the standard Mazak plunger is only good for about .0008.

If you really want serious rigidity though, you're not going to be happy with any C frame machine. You gotta go high dollar with a Mori NV6000DCG, Makino (like the one Dan posted), Okuma Ace Center, Mazak FJV, etc. with an enclosed bridge type design.

Reply to
Joe788

very well said, so ............ well kid (Bill) whataya gonnna do?

Reply to
cncmillgil

Joe,

Thanks for the in depth reply. Actually the Mazak rep was in today and we were quite astounded with features and frame construction (spread) compared to our VF-2SS. Pricing is very competitive and as you said the new machines (430A+) has the linear roller guides too.

At this point I am kinda diggin the Mazak. I am waiting for a DMG proposal but I already know is quite bit higher in price and I worry about service.

Cheers

Reply to
Bill

So the stimulus is working? People - small business? big business? are buying machines again? Hmmmm thats Vinny, Bill & HurcoMe. 3 so far Anyone else buying NEW? & what?

Reply to
cncmillgil

The DMG sure looks nice & they do have a decent reputation...tho they do not have much of a presence in North America. I am a fan of the siemens control they offer.. The Mazak would be my vote....good reputation and good service. I am amazed that Haas offers a "premium spindle"....I would think that should be standard. No matter what route you go...make sure you get the look ahead function (high speed processing).

Reply to
Zymrgy

Bill, if you go with the "Smart" series machines, make sure you check out what they have as far as program storage, high speed machining, ethernet, etc. I don't have any experience with the Smart control, so I have no idea how it stacks up against a Nexus machine with the Matrix control. The Matrix control will make you never want to go back to anything else, with the 20gb hard drive, plug&play ethernet transfer, writing probe data to the hard drive, 5 decimal place tool and work offsets, 5 decimal place programming.

Reply to
Joe788

Bill wrote in news:f682072b-049e-400e-83d9- snipped-for-privacy@x18g2000pro.googlegroups.com:

Steer very clear of DMG.......Unless you can stand for your machine to be down for long stretches of time (i.e. up to 19 weeks). Had an incident just a couple months ago, machine went down, electrical problem. Was 3 weeks before a tech even showed up (And we are a global Tier 1 supplier.) Spends 2 days and says we need "this" part, and he'll order it and it will be in in 2 weeks. 2 weeks passes....no part... We call....and inquire.. Reply: "Oh, they don't make that part anymore, sorry." No help, no suggestions, just "we don't make it anymore" your tough luck. The machine is a 2003 or 2004 model year 5 axis. It's actually taken us as long as 19 weeks to get a machine fixed.

We'll never buy another one, period.

Mazak still fully supports the 1991 model AJV's we have (as well as all the other mazak equipment we have - 200+) and we can usually have parts in 4-6 hours if we door to door it.

Reply to
Anthony

why no Mori?

Reply to
cncmillgil

Hi Guys!

Thanks for everyone's input. We're going Okuma M460-VE -- a beefy high torque, dual column machine.

We were about the pull the trigger on a Mazak Smart 430A and then it was sold out from under us and they're only building one a month for now. We then came close to a Mori Seiki DuraVertical 5100 and the salesman couldn't nail down a delivery date (first it was 12 weeks, then 3 weeks (give me a PO to lock in), then 9 weeks (minutes later), then 3 weeks!!! While all this BS was going on, we called Okuma and they offered us a new M460-VE dual column machine for a small reasonable premium over the other guy's C-frames.

Unlike the other sales guys, the Okuma folks (Morris) actually took time to really understand our requirements and gave us references to customers with similar challenges. After we spoke to two of these shops (one who has 45 machines), it was all over. PO went in yesterday.

Reply to
Bill

Cool, you cant go wrong with Okuma or Mori's. They are the "brick shit houses" of machine tools if money is not an issue. So what about options? C axis rotary table, CTS , tooling? Thats were they "getya"

-- ~g~

Reply to
cncmillgil

Bought the Renishaw probe set -- other features we need are standard. Total price came in at less than a 17% premium over the entry model Mori DuraVertical -- not bad for double column bridge machine! Comes with the Big-Plus spindle so we're going to try our some heat shrink Big-Plus holders too.

Reply to
Bill

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