fadal with the single blue slide over door

[powerstream]

I hope someone can shed some light on this for me

I have been shopping around for a early to late 2000 fadal machining center
I have noticed some that have a blue front door with a radius top
much more modern looking than the typical squarish box fadal cabinets.
Is this the perfomance series? or something else.
surely this must indicate something about the model other than style.
Some also seem to have Fanuc controllers. But I have seen the typical box cabinet machines with Fanucs as well.
The "blue door" machines I am refering to seem to be significantly higher priced as well.
I asked two dealers "what is the significance of that style it must represent something different (better) mechanically"
Both responses indicated "it was just a styling exercise, no real difference"

That is very hard for me to believe
There are many Fadal experts here surely you can clarify this for me.

[Neal]

The machines you are speaking about with the single blue door and rounded sheetmetal was an atempt to modernize the appearance of the equipment. The expense of doing that was not off set by increased sales so during one of the frequent management changes Fadal was forced to endure the decision was made to return to the less costly sheetmetal design with some improvements in that style.

Neal

[powerstream]

Thanks for the response

so it had no bearing on the function of the machine?

What is the Performance line? how would i know that versus a normal machine?

I understand some have box ways while others are linear. how much difference do different ways make in the real world cutting fairly lightweight parts.

The thing that bothers me most about those machines just seeing them run is the SLOW tool changer. How prevelent were the side mount tool changers?
would that be part of the performance series? were the sidemounts much faster? how about reliability?

Thanks for the info

[Neal]

The major difference in the Standard and Proformance machine is the way construction. On the Standard way you will see two wide outside ways that carry the vertical wieght of the table and saddle and a third center guide way that encompasses the gibbs for straight front to back tracking and left to right motion.
The Proformance machines will have only two wide ways that carry the weight and encompass the gibbs as well. There are also differences in the casting with the Proformance machine being somewhat larger and beefer. They also have a higher quality ballscrew which is one of the reasons why they are a more expensive machine.
The earlier machines all had the slower and simpler ATC for a tool changer while the later machines had an option of either the ATC of the faster Dual Arm ATC (DATC). Towards the end of the production most machines had the DATC unless the ATC was ordered.

As far as the box veruses the linear ways, the box ways are stiffer and enable you to take heavier cuts. There are some people that might disagree with that but I can tell you from my own test at the factory the box way machines are stiffer. All linear way machine are the Standard series as well as the combination system where X&Y are linear and the Z is box. All Proformance machine are full box way machines.

Neal