Your prefered machine.

[DanSinOhio]

We do a lot of big ugly castings and other mild steel. Our main issue is the raw dimensioning. I have the luxury of some very liberal tolerances but the double edge of that is the raw has ridiculous tolerances.

I considered Toyoda since that is what we are replacing but for some reason the men up top didn't really seem that interested.

It's interesting that a You-Ji is mentioned. Before we purchased our Haas we were looking at one. Personally I thought it was a little bit better suited for our operations but at that time I was not involved in those decisions. Our only problems with it was the test we were shown was poorly planned and didn't impress our president. Plus there wasn't much clearance in the tool magazine for the length of tool we needed on the right angle head that was in there.

[JROM]

It's that same old saw "how fast you want to go? how much you got to spend?"
If you really need to squeeze the numbers and do it over and over step up to the Mori.
That said if you are doing regular work + or - .005 a Haas machine has a lot of bang for the buck. My main question when I buy a new machine is about the outfit that is going to support it. Very important if you don't want to sit around and wait for someone to come and fix your machine. And I don't care what anyone says, THEY ALL BREAK DOWN SOONER OR LATER.

[DanSinOhio]

I won't even tell anyone what my tolerances are. It would be too embarrassing. I originally thought they wanted increased production at a lower cost. This was easy to show considering we have been doing much of this on manual machines since our indexer went down for the count. The new management wanted longevity and a reasonable price. With our tolerances I wasn't too worried about repeatability unless something really went bad. Now the owner would like me to prove the higher end machines last longer. A new article in T&P magazine about Haas has the owner feeling a bit more kindly towards them and thinks they may have just gotten a bad rap at first.

[the_cnc_king]

just saying hello to the Community.
I am a Student at a trade school, and found this website to be very helpful.
i have only used mazak so far, so i choose mazak.

[mastercamguru]

Although Okuma needs a little macro check at toolchanges (I'm over that).
The biggest plus I have noticed about Okuma is clean coolant. The sealed linear slides may not be as rigid as box ways, but I have never had to skim the tramp oil (way lube) out of an Okuma sump. My personal preference has always beem MATSUURA, but I would have to say Okuma is second best.

[littlerob]

OKUMA I will swear by these machines, Mori builds a equally quality machine, but the question "was what is preferred". I like the Haas control but I need to hold tolerance and do it real fast. Never run a Mazak but have watched them do some serious metal removal like 800 IPM. Robert

[AviatorDave]

Okuma's were the first CNC I ever setup and ran. MC-3V I think, nice little machines. We had a couple of Kitamuras (one was a pallet changer, worked you to death), a Maho (funky axes), but you always remember your first "love."

No question of my least favorite - Acrolock. It had these enormous chip bins on each side. They were the size of commercial garbage dumpsters. After running one for a while I found out why - to catch the tool holders when they shot out, which was a regular occurrence.

[Gkohl]

Nobody likes Makino's?

Many of the FMS systems I have seen were built around their machining centers.

[Gkohl]

BTW, I don't know much about their service or longevity, but I also saw a Chiron MC do some very impressive work.

[aaron p]

Like the mazak PC/Fusion controls, but their machines need to be built a little more heavy duty. If they were built like Mori-Seiki machines and had their Mazak control, it would be my ideal machine.

[APP]

Okuma's were the first CNC I ever setup and ran. MC-3V I think, nice little machines. We had a couple of Kitamuras (one was a pallet changer, worked you to death), a Maho (funky axes), but you always remember your first "love."

No question of my least favorite - Acrolock. It had these enormous chip bins on each side. They were the size of commercial garbage dumpsters. After running one for a while I found out why - to catch the tool holders when they shot out, which was a regular occurrence.

Acroloc tool holders. rofl I think we had a lathe that was set up full time just to make all those stupid pins and crap. God I hated those machines.

[APP]

It's that same old saw "how fast you want to go? how much you got to spend?"
If you really need to squeeze the numbers and do it over and over step up to the Mori.
That said if you are doing regular work + or - .005 a Haas machine has a lot of bang for the buck. My main question when I buy a new machine is about the outfit that is going to support it. Very important if you don't want to sit around and wait for someone to come and fix your machine. And I don't care what anyone says, THEY ALL BREAK DOWN SOONER OR LATER.

My Haas holds tenths all day. I spend all day on a Mori with a **** Fanuc control. Moris are nice machines, but they are not all that and pot stickers too..

I have never run any live tool machine that gives as nice a surface finish milling as my Haas. Maybe the NL series does, but the sls can lick my taint.

Had I been able to find one...I would have bought a Okuma. Lathe, not mill.