Advice on new VMC Purchase

[Titanium]

I am a novice one man shop wanting to save machining costs and time by purchasing a VMC. I am not a machinist but have several years experiance with my manual Bridgeport. I am impressed with the Hurco control interface and DXF translator. Looking for any and all input to make the right purchase decision. My bubget is $50k-65K

[Geof]

I think you need to give a bit more information. Do you deal with big parts, little parts or anything? Is it mostly mold work and one offs or is it small scale production? Do you need high precision or is it a case of ripping metal off fast to within a thou or so. Your budget is in the correct range for being able to make a choice rather than just grabbing the cheapest available because it is the cheapest.

[Caprirs]

As the Mighty Geof said, knowing what you intend to do is a big factor. Lots of steel work means high torque and heavy castings for rigidity. Aluminum means lots of rpm usually. Mold guys usually don't care about tool change speed but jobs shops with fast cycles find it makes a difference in how many cycles a day they can run. It's important that the machine be a good match for the type of work you do.

I'll also add that if you're paying for a new machine, do research on the support after the sale. Will the dealer train you? Does the dealer have their own service staff or do they subcontract out to a different company? What is the availabilty of support from the factory for help with programming or emergency repairs? If you know other shops locally, ask them about the dealer's reputation.

[Titanium]

My primary need to is to support my own products which are typically aluminum
G10 Nylon and acrylics. Some SS parts. However I would like to avail myself to additional work which could be anything within the work envelope of the machine.

I build one off designs where most is 2.5D work. In some cases I require fairly high precision, no production work but would take on some to fill the gaps between my jobs.

I have compared the Haas TM series to the Hurco VM and see the spindle rpm, horsepower are higher on the HUrco for the same $$.

Kearney machine in B'ham has Hurco trained support locally

Ti.

[Titanium]

The work envelope for the VM1 is 26x14x18 vs 40x18x18 for the VM2.
As quoted with options the difference is ~20K for the larger work space.

If I am giong to take the plunge I thought that the larger envelope would mean more work simple stated.

An additional 2yr warranty after the first year is $3K

Ti

[smoa1980]

We have a brand new hurco VMX-42, along with a couple older hurcos (early 90's) and they are great. They are pretty easy to run, I can teach an apprentice, and in a couple days and they are programming on their own. We cut pretty much everything from aluminum and nylon to titanium and inconel. It does pretty good you just have to peck a lot on the harder stuff. If you have any specific question just ask, I will try to answer them.

[Titanium]

Thanks for the feedback.