Which lathe should we purchase

[Lathebuyer]

Hello everyone,

I own a small company that makes products that contains different small metal and plastic parts.

Since we have been increasing our production steadly over the past few years I am now considering buying CNC lathe to manufacture our own parts instead of puchasing these from machine shop.

We use parts made of pure copper, pure silver, brass, aluminium, Titanium and delrin (and perhaps even hard woods later on).

The diameter is ranging from 2,4mm to 40mm (length (maximum 80mm) and the part shave off axis holes/thread and are machined at both ends.

We will also use square parts later on that are around 40x40x20mm final dimensions and if the machine could make these it would be great.

The total amount of different parts are around 30-40.

We need high precision, perfect surfaces and continous operation with as little man power need as humanly possible both during production and programing.

I have no experience programing CNC machines but I have designed all the parts in Solidworks.

The questions:

Which machine is the right for these tasks?
How hard is the actual programming of these machines?
How long should we expect a high quality CNC lathe to operate trouble free if we run it 24/7?

Thank you and Best regards,

Lathebuyer

[jholland1]

Lathebuyer
I notice you are in Denmark. Traub or Index machine with bar feeder would likely meet your needs. German support is nearby.
jh