My company is ready to purchase a new CNC machine. I am stuck between choosing the SL-10 or the SL-20. I am leaning towards the SL-20 because it has a lot more space inside and its future capabilities. My company machines various plastics and teflons. My future goal is to start overnight production with the addition a bar feeder from HAAS. I was wondering if there is any pitfalls I should be looking for in this endevor and if anyone has experiance with either of these machines, how they feel about them, and in their opinion which machine is better.

Scott,

We bought an SL-10 with the bar loader in March this year. So far it has been an excellent machine. The SL-20 is quite a bit bigger machine, and allows for more options, ie: live tooling, fully programmable tailstock (as opposed to the SL-10's manual move and lock/programmable quill). We typically turn smaller parts and wanted the higher spindle RPM. Also, the tailstock would have been nice, but it wasn't a necessity for us.

Make sure you get a collet chuck for the machine that will accept the full spindle capacity. We made the mistake of getting the 16C chuck that goes to 1-5/8" cap. and the machine spindle will go to 1-3/4". We should have gone with a 3J instead. Oh well.

High pressure coolant would have been nice too, but I guess it all depends on how much you want to spend.

I hope this info helps.

Good luck!

Gizmo