Hitachi Seiki - good? feedback?

[SRT Mike]

I am kinda sorta looking at this Hitachi Seiki VM40 Mark II that a dealer around has. The price seems decent - machine is mid 90's.

I am wondering if anyone has experience with them? I heard they are not making them anymore, but that doesnt bother me too much. The main thing is many of our NC programs are quite large (200k to 2MB). They are of course complex 3D contouring. I would need the control to have a reasonable amount of memory, OR, be able to drip-feed the machine.

Actually, drip feeding would be preferable. Anyone know if this machine supports this?

And any commentary on this brand of machine would be helpful, as would any general things to check for when inspecting it.

Thanks!

[jerber]

I used to work with them when I was a operator. It was in fact the first cnc mill I ever worked with (10 years ago ). Most of the work we did was 2,5 D and I just programmed it on the machine.

I never used drip feeding but I think it's possible.

One returning problem we had was with the electronics. They would overheat very quickly. We had to leave doors of the electronics compartment open all the time. It could have been fixed with a couple of fans but the company I worked for found it cheaper to let the doors open .

Does your machine have a 8k or higher rpm spindle ?

Overall I think it's a fast and accurate machine.

Jeroen

[SRT Mike]

Thanks for the feedback.

The machine in question has a 12k RPM spindle and a pallet changer. We cut mostly acrylic so the 12k spindle would be nice. On the electronics, I wonder if you had a missing fan or something? For sure if I had an overheating problem I'd power it down, clean out all the dust, then install a few PC cooling fans in the case. But I guess its easier/cheaper to leave the doors open and add a fan