SHIZUOKA mills with ATC any good?

Karl

Im not sure which machine this is but I suspect this is a knee mill witht he chain type tool changer.

A friend of mine has one with the ahha retrofit on it and it works perfectly. Thy are nice rigid machines for a knee mill.

I have a pretty sizeable pile of nmtb tooling that is all new in the box if your interested. its all kennametal. let me knwo and I will dig it out and figure out what I have.

I may also have a camsoft cnc lite package new in the box with the breakout for sale in the near future if you are in nee of another one.

regards

bill griffin

Boy howdy that brings back some memories. I had a shizouka ANS mill with bandit control and the tool thrower, I mean tool changer. It works pretty well considering. One thing, it has a claw that opens and closes around the flange. So your tooling flanges must all be the same size or you have problems. Also, they tend to need a 45 degree chamfer on each edge of the flange, about 1/8" The arm takes the tool out of the spindle, then flips it over and stands it on the threaded end of the holder in a little cup. The throwing part comes if you have a long or heavy tool, when that arm swings from spindle to tool storage, while rotating it 180 degrees, it can toss it at you. DO NOT expect it to change a 3" boring head or tapping head. Also, you are held to 4-6 inches of quill travel only. The machines are pretty beefy really, I used mine pretty heavy considering. Jon

Karl Townsend wrote:

I have a Fadal VMC4020 and a VMC 20 for sale. $16k for the pair. Comes with a cabinet full of tooling. Both very nice machines, may be inspected under power. The 4020 also has a 4th axis. Machines are mid 1985 models, meticulosly maintained and in perfect running order.

Located in Bakersfield, California.

We can ship.

Gunner

Liberals - Cosmopolitan critics, men who are the friends of every country save their own. Benjamin Disraeli

Karl, The Shizuoka mill is an excellant piece of iron! I've had one for

25 years and it performs well for the things I ask it to do. The rapids are slow as is the spindle RPM by todays standards, but the rigidity and fit and finish of the machine is very good. This mill was very popular on the West Coast in the early 80s-90s. Bandit was the primary control and the machines were retrofitted mainly by Hasbach and SK Systems.

Mine doesn't have a toolchanger so I can't speak to its reliability etc., but I beleive that the early toolchangers used on these were manufactured by the Fadal bros. before they stated making full blown machines.

If the iron is in good shape I would consider a Shizuoka an excellant candidate for an up dated control.

Steve

>

There is a Shizouka for sale in Santa Ana California. Very nice and I think $5- $10k...

Gunner

Liberals - Cosmopolitan critics, men who are the friends of every country save their own. Benjamin Disraeli

...

...

Thanks, everybody, for the input. As this is just the size machine we want, I'm on the lookout for one of these. I've got a year before I need it, so I'll just watch for that possible killer deal for now. (I've got to put a control on a CHNC first)

Karl

Take a good look at Mach2 for your CNC controls.

This is a good choice for a hobby machine with little to no I/O. Art F. has the best support I've seen on any product. But, if you got real servos (not step drivers to baby units), tool turrets, tool changers, control panels, or anything else like on an industrial machine; Mach2 won't get it.

I like Camsoft, I'm sure there are other good controls. The learning curve on doing a retrofit is a steep one. The job gets much easier after two or three.

Karl

N0 !

"Karl Townsend" wrote in message news:TdVbe.392$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net...

Common as dirt on the used market should be the first hint, no ???

===

Ayup.......

Karl,

Suggest buy as many of these as you can possibly find--they will make you richer than you could ever dream possible, even in your wildest dreams...

I had one of those ANS mills too, with the same tool changer. A little interesting trivia. The tool changer you are talking about was called a "Quick Draw". I think that is because it kind of looks a gun slinger flipping out his gun from a holster when it operates. The interesting part though is who designed and built those tool changers. It was the first product from the guys who eventually became FADAL!

Gary H. Lucas