I haven't got any experience with other makes, but overall I've been happy with my Daewoo. It's an old '97 Puma 200 MSA (twin spindle, live tooling) purchased used. It appears to have held up well and continues to hold good tolerances. I haven't pushed it extremely hard (I've been working aluminum), but it seems well designed for my production needs.
One of the best features of this make is the customer service. I have had very good help from their techs with control system and machine related questions. I have had very good product support for my machine even though it is 12yrs old now.
This is my first production acquisition and I have been relieved how quickly we have been able to recover from light crashes. I don't think any machinist wants to brag about the crash worthiness of their equipment, but I am relieved to admit that my machine has not been difficult to re-zero after the odd turret bump. I haven't done anything terribly energetic yet, but I've found that the turret and spindle easy to adjust dead straight considering the stiffness the machine needs to exhibit. There appears to be some significant consideration as to the provision of slip points where things go out of line instead of delivering damaging loads to the ball screws or chassis. It's annoying to have to realign things, but I'd rather do that than crack my bed.
Overall, I've been happy with the steel (mechanics) and less happy with the control system (fanuc). Fanuc user manuals are a pain to work through and I think as I develop my communication skills in Fanuc 18T, my relations with my wife will erode as I become more of a fanucklehead.
What do you plan to do with your machine tool?  |