Used Partners any good?

[DaveQueener]

Hello Gentlemen,
I make garden railway size trains, and I am looking for a very modestly priced used VMC; and as I surf the used machinery dealers on machine tools dot com, Milltronics Partner series mills keep popping up, from the early 1990s, often in the $7K-$8k range which is about my max at this point. I was spoiled at the local technical college using Haas machines, so I don't know what to expect from a Milltronics machine, nor do I have a very good idea how to assess just how much wear and tear may be on a particular one.

Any suggestions?

Anyone got a decent VMC he wants to sell, preferably with a tool changer and 30" of travel in the x-axis?

Cheers!

Dave Queener
Knoxville, TN

[Jonsmachine]

We have a '98 Milltronics Partner MB19 and have been using it for about 6 years now. We run this machine A LOT and it just keeps going without a hiccup. It is a surprisingly robust machine! The only problem we have had was with the 12V power inverter but after a quick replacement, everything runs great.

Good luck with your findings

[antny]

i have ran haas, deckel maho being my favorite, mazzak, fanuc bla bla, and u just cant out cut a milltronics.

[AMCjeepCJ]

It really depends on which one, we bought ours new in 1994 and its been a POS since literally we bought it. It got confused on two different occasions while sitting still loading programs from a floppy and took off in the Y axis and continued to spool up after hitting the estop several times and ended up shooting the Y axis ball screw out of the casting next to my nuts. It did that twice and the second time we rebuilt it ourselves since we watched them do it the first time. My uncle on the other hand bought one a year later when they changed out the software and hardware in the back and he never experienced the problems we did.

I liked the size and the way it worked, when it worked but the machine was constantly (still does) vibrate the boards loose in the back and it's a crap shoot whether it will turn on from day to day... We don't use it for much anymore. We sent in the entire computer to Milltronics three years ago and they didn't pack it well (I should say it was piss poor) on the return shipping and out computer was crushed and now the Z axis won't stay up when you turn off the drives but no one would fix it... UPS said it was their fault for not packing it right and Milltronics said it was UPS fault for handling it rough. We ended up paying for part of the bill but it worked better before we tried to fix it and the before machine kind of sucked since literally the first month we owned it. If you know how to fix it, it'll do a reasonably decent job but if you can't repair one on your own, keep looking. If you get a lemon, you'll have it bite you again and again but if it is a newer model, you'll probably love it and BTW the software is super easy to learn!!

That is my $34,000.02

[Farmers Machine]

Its not the iron its the control. How old is your desk top PC ? you are probally not running a 286 from 1991 or so. I have 2, 2001 machines with the Centurion 6 control and can machine a circle around a Haas with one hand tied. on a simple little 10 tool job I can hand you a finished part programmed at the control in conversational programming before you ever send the Master Cam programm to the control on the Hass or any other FAnuc style control. When I worked in central engineering at Alcoa we had Hass, Mazak, Mitishubishi M3 and M5, Fanuc, Seimens. Heidenhein and Hyundai easy key. None of these controls can even stand in the shadow of a Milltronics!!!!!
Call Milltronics to see what a new control retrofit would cost on a early 90's machine that still has tight iron and is avaliable from 5 to 10 thousand, ball screws and motors dont go bad, but bad wires and outdated electronics will send you over the edge.
Good Luck in your search
The Farmer

[chipsinpan]

$7,000-$8,000 is pretty good for that vintage of Partner . But most of them have only 24" of X travel .
Pretty hard to asses the condition if you don't know basic programming of this machine .
I bought 2- 1995 vintage machines and they are money making workhorses .
I was lucky on the first one , in that the dealer met me to see the machine .
I had him pgm a cycle to run the spindle in fwd / rev so I could hear the spindle bearings .
BTW brgs are about $1,200 just for the parts .
I also had him write a loop program to traverse the table the full X & Y travel , and zeroed an indicator to see if it always returned to the same location ( it did )
Once you get used to the conversational programming it is very easy to write simple programs .