General question on CNC turning centers

[Rickermania]

Hi all,

Has been lurking around the forum for quite some time and i must say it is really informative for people like me who works in the machining trade but does not have a formal education on it. Thanks!

Anyways I come from a small family own machining shop. Our main core business are machining threaded hydraulic fittings. Recently I have been thinking about expanding the capability of the shop beyong the manual lathes and milling machings that we have and venture into some cnc equipments, particularly the cnc lathe turning centers.

After much research on the net, i am really impress with okuma and mazak turning centers. I am looking at their smaller machines as stuff we do are usually less than 6 ". As i am really new to the world of cnc, i would hope to have some feedback on these 2 brands. Of course please do give me some other suggestion if there are better ones. All comments are welcomed.

Next question would be cost. Since i have not made any formal enquiry yet, I would like to check whats are the cost of owning one of these machines. I am also thining of getting used machines to save some $$ so anyone who knows the general price of one, pls do post.

[Al_The_Man]

A word of advice when buying used CNC, Get as much (OEM) documentation of the machine as you can, and either obtain a copy of the machine parameters, including the Option Param, or download them as SOON as you get the machine.
This is often the last thing thought about when buying used CNC, and everyweek I see at least one posting (one here today) asking for copies of machine parameters, these are really OEM machine specific.
Without the parameters, a CNC machine is just a chunk of Steel.
Al.