Hardinge GS line vs DMG ecoline, vs Akira machine purchase

[ChrisNZ]

Hi Guys I am no just sitting in front of the specs of various machines.
I have narrowed it down to:
Hardinge GS line of machines.
DMG ecoline
Akira seiki

All linear guideway machines and all within a similar price bracket. Budget is a concern but at the same time I have to take credibility and service performance of suppliers into consideration. I am looking at getting a 4 axis Mill with a 1000mm X-travel, linear scales and 10000 rpm spindle.
The Lathes I am looking at will have 1m z travel and live tooling.
I do not have a preference in regard to the controller, Which will be either Fanuc, Siemens or Heidenhain. A big plus for the DMG is that they come with a Heidenhain without additional cost if you choose, whereas Hardinge charges big dollar for Heidenhain controls.

Any experience and opinions on the given machines would be greatly appreciated. In regards to service life rigidity and experienced advantages/disadvantages.
I will be cutting aluminium and 416 stainless mostly, but you will never know what comes through the shop door.
My own products ( silencers and rifle receivers) require turning and milling work. And I have been tempted to look at a multi-axis millturn like okuma and Mazak offer them to do it all in one go, but then I suppose that would exceed my budget, even though I would just buy one machine.
Next thing is that I can get stock machines in 4 weeks time, but glas scales for instance will add up to 4 month to the delivery time, and that would mean longer time without additional productivity. What is the common wisdom here? Get up and running fast, or rather sit and wait for the goodies that may or may not offer an advantage?
Any answers welcome......

[gerfmate]

hi there , Chrisnz
i reckon the deckel ecoline but then there is one issue with deckel and that is support , although i heard that the support for the akira isnt that hot either i suppose it depends which island you are on , North or South? have you checked out the takisawa's ?!! i believe that controllers are an important issue because it is the grunt you need behind siemens are known to be the gruntiest but i may be wrong there , i have heard that the heidenhein do give issues and the replacements are expensive to choose either go siemens or fanuc for good service support in nz,
cheers

[underthetire]

Personally, I'd run like hell from a seimens. Ours is always having a problem. The heidenheins we have have been flawless. Akira seiki is really not very good quality/longevity IMO. Here in the us you can get a DMG/mori seiki with the mori mapps control. Mori supports DMG here, service has gotten better. Still can't beat a fanuc for reliability IMO.

[ChrisNZ]

Hi thanks for the quick response,
I am Nelson based. It is actually quite hard to make out what kind of promises, you can actually tick off as being trustworthy. They all promise good service and fast response times. I just plain had to cancel out most of the suppliers, because their statements have been so contradictory and it came down to just a sales pitch, where things where promised that where just unrealistic. I have not checked takisawa, but that is about the only one.
I received sound advice from a technical perspective from DMG, Hardinge (Leabourn and rose) and revelution CNC and Okuma, the latter being of the charts budget wise. About everybody else was either just straight out lying or making up arguments for their products.
Hence me looking for someone who has experience with certain machines in a similar price bracket or even better individual machine tool suppliers here in NZ.
I heard the same thing and Siemens seems to be a sound choice for me, even though Heidenhain is somewhat tempting. Will be running most parts of the cam package and I think Siemens has advantages in regards to shop floor programming....so fanuc being the least tempting....

Originally Posted by gerfmate hi there , Chrisnz i reckon the deckel ecoline but then there is one issue with deckel and that is support , although i heard that the support for the akira isnt that hot either i suppose it depends which island you are on , North or South? have you checked out the takisawa's ?!! i believe that controllers are an important issue because it is the grunt you need behind siemens are known to be the gruntiest but i may be wrong there , i have heard that the heidenhein do give issues and the replacements are expensive to choose either go siemens or fanuc for good service support in nz, cheers

[ChrisNZ]

Thanks for the Akira warning. I do have a thing with Heidenhain, i just like them, but in a DMG it is build to order, no stock machines available and that pushes production 4 months back, I would be looking strongly at mapps but I have been told it is not yet available???
Service is just starting up around here, so little can be said and all rests on hopes.....that some of the promises are true.....:-)

Originally Posted by underthetire Personally, I'd run like hell from a seimens. Ours is always having a problem. The heidenheins we have have been flawless. Akira seiki is really not very good quality/longevity IMO. Here in the us you can get a DMG/mori seiki with the mori mapps control. Mori supports DMG here, service has gotten better. Still can't beat a fanuc for reliability IMO.

[gerfmate]

CNC DIRECT IN AUCKLAND SELLS THE TAKISAWA AND CHEVALIER ,NOT SURE WHAT THE CHEV IS LIKE WITH SLANT BED OR PRODUCTION BUT I BELIEVE THE TAKISAWAS ARE GOOD

[ripachip]

had my EX-308 11 years. Zero maintenance issues, except changing the belt for live tool drive. Still holds tenths all day. I do close tolerance (+.01mm -0) finish ops on it, instead of my Mori NL1500 MSY cause the Mori won't hold.

[ChrisNZ]

Originally Posted by ripachip had my EX-308 11 years. Zero maintenance issues, except changing the belt for live tool drive. Still holds tenths all day. I do close tolerance (+.01mm -0) finish ops on it, instead of my Mori NL1500 MSY cause the Mori won't hold.

There you have it. And so many people would argue that going for a Mori is a no brainer....:-)
Will give CNCdirect a buzz. Mind you hardinge is almost of the list, they are more expensive with all the options than an Okuma Genos and I can not get any decent feedback on their machine quality, so I narrowed it down to DMG, Okuma, Doosan and now having a look at Takisawa Taiwan.