Which VMC

[Cfin]

Hi Gary

Thanks for the links, I was aware of one of them but didn't know there was anything outside of Auckland.
To be honest, I never even considered buying a machine from a NZ dealer.
Why? Past experience has shown me that "availability" is limited or non-existent, there is no service structure (unless you live in Auckland), (parts) mark-ups are often verging on theft from some distributors (I have many examples....but a recent one I was involved with, was near 900% markup over the US RETAIL price of a particular item !!), most deal with non brand-name machines ..... and internal cost structures.
Some things I can see their point of view... there is little sense in having "expensive" stock sitting on the floor/in the store when volumes are low and there is no sense in having five experienced techs... for the same reason, so its a chase-your-tail situation.
As for parts, if people "play the game", I support them.... if not... it is a global marketplace and I feel alot of these guys don't realize that...

However on the other side of the coin, if I needed 10 machines and they had to be running 24/7 .... then thats a totally different situation.... both for them and me, but I am not in that situation.

[SRT Mike]

Originally Posted by Cfin Now thats the sort of comments I was after... I am not fazed by the lack of service support here. We tend to be a country of DIY'ers just for that reason. So I guess my question should have been - are there any known reliability "flaws" that one local brand has ?

It is hard to say that any one machine will be higher reliability than others... I am in an office park with a few machine shops. I have Okuma, Leadwell and Bridgeport/Hardinge machines in our shop, and they have all had occasional issues. Having said that, I have fixed every problem myself, none of them were particularly major problems.

The shops around me have various machines. One is big into Mazak, one has a lot of Matsuura and one has Mori Seiki and Excel. None of us have really had any huge problems, just little things that you could fix yourself if you have the time and patience. The Mori shop had a hydraulic pump go - $4k from Mori, but he took it apart and found the OEM manufacturer and got one for $800.

I don't think you will be able to get any meaningful data as far as actual reliability of machines on here - you will get a lot of anecdotes but you would need a massive sample size to get a meaningful data set and you just won't get that here.

But I do think you can help yourself in your decision. Here's my advice... stick with the more popular brands of machine. That means you will have more people owning them who may have similar issues to the issues you will have, and will be able to help you. Also, stay as generic as possible. We all look longingly at machines with huge RPM ratings on the spindle, linear motors, box ways with exotic bearings and all of that. But when any of those things break, you're dealing with the manufacturer and parts are expensive.

So I would say you should avoid Haas, Okuma or Mazak because they all have their own custom controls. You should get something with a Fanuc control or a widely used control like a Mitsubishi. Mitsubishi has been excellent helping me diagnose problems.

As for the brand of machine, get one with "generic" parts. My Leadwell is all made up of generic parts. Mitsubishi motors and drives. NKS (sp?) bearings. I had a coolant pump go - Leadwell was something like $1800 but I looked at the label on the pump and you can get it for $400 direct from the manufacturer... if I had a Haas with a high-PSI pump, I'd be dealing with them directly for repair.

Look at machines like Leadwell, Mori Seiki, Excel and such. I'd also stay away from any machine that came with brand new (at the time the machine was made) whiz-bang features. There is never the user base for that stuff so the first generation of new features will have more trouble.




So, in short... I say get a generic machine from a company who just buys an off-the-shelf control (I recommend Fanuc or Mitsubishi), and with a generic machine that uses off-the-shelf parts. It if breaks, you will be able to get parts from tons of places and it will be easy to work on.

[Kool Parts]

After listening in on a bunch of NZ sites in the last year..I have noticed a familiar vibe. And you have hit it right on the head. The internet will eventually get the local business in line price wise..but it will take a while
I will build up some links for you of reputable used machine sales sites..(is that possible??) I am bone tired tonight
Gary

[Cfin]

Mike, thanks for that and think you are right onto it....
Should something "stop", I need to be able talk to someone has a similar machine/problem and locate the possible problem or area. I guess most problems are either simple things or an outright component failure.

Mori seems to be the most mentioned choice.... "entry" appears more expensive but I guess you get what you pay for..

[Cfin]

Originally Posted by Kool Parts After listening in on a bunch of NZ sites in the last year..I have noticed a familiar vibe. And you have hit it right on the head. The internet will eventually get the local business in line price wise..but it will take a while I will build up some links for you of reputable used machine sales sites..(is that possible??) I am bone tired tonight Gary

Yes, its a widespread problem here Gary... but the net will beat them. I think we should all be buying shares in international freight companies !!

The links would be appreciated, am mainly looking on the west coast as it alittle cheaper freight wise but out of major centers in the east isn't too bad.

[SRT Mike]

Originally Posted by Cfin Mike, thanks for that and think you are right onto it.... Should something "stop", I need to be able talk to someone has a similar machine/problem and locate the possible problem or area. I guess most problems are either simple things or an outright component failure. Mori seems to be the most mentioned choice.... "entry" appears more expensive but I guess you get what you pay for..

I am not sold on the "you get what you pay for" thing... it's like cars. A Toyota Camry will get you back and forth to work. So will a Bentley. Is the Bentley better? Well, it certainly has more stuff and will do the same job as the Camry but will do it smoother, quicker, etc. But is it more reliable? I would say maybe it's less reliable... and when it breaks, it will be more expensive.

I am definitely sold on the idea that something like a Mori will do certain things a lot better than a generic Fanuc machine. But if you don't need it to do those things, then you are just spending more money at purchase time for a name... and when it breaks, if it's the whiz-bang stuff that breaks, you will be dealing with Mori for service.

Having said that, I would love to have a shop full of Moris... if money was no object. But my 15 year old Leadwell has been running probably 6-8 hours a day on average at almost always it's max spindle RPM. It had an encoder on one axis go bad and I replaced the Y axis thrust bearing because it was getting noisy. Now the X is noisy... it's about $600 for the parts and a few hours of labor, no biggie.

My Okuma lathe had a leaky hydraulic actuator - fixed it myself for $150 in parts vs. several thousand for a new actuator or hundreds to rebuild mine.

My previous Leadwell VMC had a bad servo amp... but it was a mitsu control so it was a well known control and someone said they had the same issue, and it was one of three transistors. I searched the part number and found them, ordered the next beefier size up, $60 for three... some soldering and I was back in action.

Bridgeport had a noisy spindle... turns out it was a bearing. Pulled it off, found a company making parts for it, replaced it - was quiet as could be.

Since you'll be doing the work yourself, like me, I'd go for a generic machine that will do what you need it to do, but I wouldn't spend $$ for a "higher end" name in the hopes that it will break less, because when I talk to the shops around me, they've had at least as many issues with their Mazaks and Moris and Makinos and Matsuuras as I've had with my Okumas and Leadwells.

Good luck whatever you do!