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For a production machine you will need to look at the used market.
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Hello all.
I am on a quest to find an upgrade to our equipment. We are looking for a CNC lathe that is up to some production work. For the most part, we are looking for a turn key system that we can get up to speed as quickly as possible.
I am very new to the CNC world, so any help at this point would be very helpful.
Thanks!
For a production machine you will need to look at the used market.
On all equipment there are 2 levers...
Lever "A", and Lever F'in "B"
I have looked at a few used machines, but it is difficult to tell what to look for. Any direction on where to look?
What do you mean by production work and what is the size of your parts? When it comes to buying CNC lathes, other than hobby machines, $10,000 is probably not enough.Originally Posted by TacPyro
An open mind is a virtue...so long as all the common sense has not leaked out.
We manufacture the products in the picture below.
All of the stock that we work with is less than 2" in diameter. We don't necessarily need a stock feeder and a turret lathe, but it would be nice to get a quality bench top CNC lathe that could take over some of the repetitious and compound cuts for us.
When shopping for a CNC lathe you will need to develope some criteria for your requirements!
1. High volume or short runs of different types of parts and material.
Rigidity ~ length of average parts ~ part complexity ~ ID / OD requirements!
2. Bar capacity thru hole size.
Spindle hole dia ~ Hand feed or Bar feeder!
3. Control capacity.
Control that is similar to existing controls in use in your shop!
CNC lathes can be worn out in less than 5 years and the cost for rebuilding is going to hurt more than 10K on average!
Better double your price range and start from there!
more to follow
Jim
seen some nice 2 inch bore okuma machines on ebay last week around the 10k mark.
2007 Haas TMP-1 Microscribe MX-5 Mastercam X4 Mill Level 3 Surfaces,Solids Seagate 2 tb hard drive AMD 64x2 8gig ram windows ultimate 7 64bit Geoforce 8800 GTX
What about the SmithyCNC 924 Lathe? I don't know the quality of this machine, or how user friendly it would be for someone who doesn't know a thing about CNC, but it looks to be exactly what we have in mind at this time.
Are there other products like this on the market today?
That Smithy is the new Sieg CNC lathe from the look of it. Ask John Stevenson what he thinks of it over on:
http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/forumdisplay.php?f=3
He was helping them develop it. Seems a nice lathe, but...
If you can find an Accuslide or similar lathe used on eBay it is a whole lot better machine.
I'll also bet if you wait a little while someone will have the Sieg for less money than Smithy shows. $9K is a lot for that little lathe.
Best,
BW
PS Microkinetics have also been around a while selling this much heavier lathe:
http://www.microkinetics.com/lathe1236/index.htm
Bob, thank you for the tip on the Accuslide. It looks to be a nice lathe.
On another note, while I am doing research on "which machine", I need to get started learning how to operate a CNC lathe. Any tips on resources would be great. Until then, back to the forum I go for some good reading.
Thank you all for the help. The info is very useful.
These days due to the meltdown in the economy, many large cnc shops are unfortunately going out of business and their machinery to auction (I mean real live industrial auctions - not ebay). If you watch the auction listings, you could very well get a killer production machine within your budget. I am pretty confident that you could get a high-end (but also highly used) production machine for less than $10,000 at auction right now.
But be sure to keep in mind that shipping, rigging, tooling and CAM software for these machines can cost a whole lot more than you may expect.
TacPyro,
How long can you wait before purchasing?
We're currently developing a machine that comes close to your requirements, and our tentative goal is to debut it in 4-6 months. It's a 2-axis CNC with 13" swing, full enclosure, AC servos, AC servo spindle drive, and ground ballscrews. It is not a converted manual lathe with a gear box.
If you can wait and stretch your budget just a bit, I think we'll have the machine for you.
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