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Yes there are a few around. About the time I bought mine (2004) I saw some on e-bay. At a trade show I inquired about it at the Okuma booth and was told no-way. I said that they are on e-bay and for sale by Okuma America. The guys in the booth thought I was crazy, but a phone call validated my story and i ended up buying a new machine with the Okuma control.
Story was a company in Florida ordered a bunch of the with Fanuc cause that was all the company used and Okuma built them with Fanuc because the quantity was there. The company ended up not buying the machines and Okuma had to get rid of them so they tried selling them on E-bay.
The lathes with the Okuma control is a nice machine. The lathe with the Fanuc I don't know about, but I have never had anything go wrong with my lathe, and I would imagine a Fanuc control is comparable to Okuma. It is a box way machine and is the same thing they call the Heritage now. The heritage has some better stuff like 12 tool turret and color monitor, but the capacity for dia. is reduced a bit with the 12 turret. The heritage also has an electric turret and the rapids are a bit more.
The machine is based on some old okuma, I think I heard LB series and is built in Taiwan by Tatung. I am always amazed how rock solid the machine is, flawless in execution and never down. Very accurate and stable. I don’t want to sound like a shill, so I will say that any lathe that I managed to get would have made me happy cause I needed a machine. I like all brands, but the ES Okuma has been much fun.
