Cubic Machinery GT27/GT Mini

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Thread: Cubic Machinery GT27/GT Mini

  1. #1
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    Default Cubic Machinery GT27/GT Mini

    Anyone out there using the Cubic Machinery (Chino, CA) GT27 or GT Mini gang tool lathes? How are they working out? How does the quality compare to the Hardinge Quest?

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    I have 2 omnis and there kick ass on small parts. for small collet gangtooling machines I wouldnt buy anything but omni or hardinge, still hold tol since 94 in the tenths



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    I just took delivery of a cubic STS-27. I'm having it wired tomorrow and installed sometime next week. Initial impressions are good though I've obviously not even turned it on yet. Build quality seems good and so far the customer service experience from Cubic is well above par. More to follow...

    http://onedropyoyos.com/yoyos/


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    That STS is the double spindle lathe, right? I saw it on their floor. Nice looking machine. Very compact footprint. How is it working out?



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    Yes, it's a twin spindle. We've been fighting with various problems getting it up and running. Mainly with the Fedek barfeeder though. The lathe itself has little niggling problems here and there that I'm trying to solve. I'll report more as I progress...

    http://onedropyoyos.com/yoyos/


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    I'm still working on getting this machine up and running to our satisfaction. I'll write a novel about it when it's all said and done. In the meantime, anyone considering buying one pm me for advice.

    http://onedropyoyos.com/yoyos/


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    Getting closer to being able to offer feedback. It's been two months since the machine landed on our floor. We'll be running full production starting next week.

    http://onedropyoyos.com/yoyos/


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    Hello all. To anyone who is still interested or is considering a Cubic Machinery purchase. I would have to honestly recommend against it. Here's a brief rundown of events regarding the purchase of our STS-27:


    1. Service and support started out bad and has continued to be so. Before we had even signed acceptance of the machine, there were installation issues. They were slow to respond, didn't seem knowledgeable and ultimately tried to blame us for the issues. This all happened before they got paid. We should have realized that our concern that it would only be worse after they were paid would come true and it has. They are just about 100% unresponsive in supporting their product. Cubic even ignored our(their) local sales rep (independent from Cubic) who was trying to help us solve various issues since we couldn't get anywhere with them.

    2. While unpacking the machine we found many screws lose in various assemblies including some fasteners that held circuit boards in place in the main cabinet. We had to rebuild a few of the assemblies and re-do all the coolant plumbing because of leaks.

    3. The bar feeder had a faulty hand control and a faulty air cylinder the first time it was turned on. Replacements took weeks to arrive.

    4. The machine was sold to us as being focused and excelling with thermal stability. It was advertised and sold as having a toothed belt system that isolates the servo motor from the ball screw in the X axis - a system I'm fond of and THE reason we decided to purchase this machine. When the machine arrived and wouldn't hold the tolerance we had specified to the salesman and to Cubic, we took off the rear panel to discover that they had COMPLETELY redesigned that assembly and the servo was now coupled directly to the ball screw. When we asked them about this they claimed to reserve the right to change specs. We considered this to be more than a spec change, and this was VERY evident in it's lack of ability to hold the tolerances they had promised. Why would they change this? No explanation was ever given. Perhaps it was false advertising?

    5. From the beginning we have asked for assembly manuals for the machine knowing that we'd end up working on it ourselves since service took so long. We still haven't received them after a year and many attempts and requests.

    6. Don't expect to have your emails responded to no matter how urgent the matter. We've got service reps, managers, and the owner on an email list. Every time we write to them, they are all copied. No one responds. They simply don't care to support their product.

    7. The machine went down(while under warranty) and it was three weeks before we were back up and running. We've owned 7 other CNC machines over the last 13 years and we have never experienced a 3 week down time. The solution was actually fairly simple and should have taken only a day or two to figure out given a normal level of support. Since their support is so lacking, it took 3 weeks. And during this 3 weeks we were spending a lot of time trying to get them to help us. If we had just waited, I would say that no solution would have been provided.

    Last edited by shawncnelson; 01-09-2014 at 07:07 PM. Reason: spellin'
    http://onedropyoyos.com/yoyos/


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    That is a truly bad experience to have had with a Machine tool manufacture. Hardinge probably looks cheap these days.



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    It was never a matter of "cheap".



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    Default Re: Cubic Machinery GT27/GT Mini

    An update. Firstly, don't give this company a single one of your hard-earned pennies. This machine has had a perpetual servo amp alarm that has yet to be diagnosed, let alone fixed. When pressed on this issue, they continued to ignore us. We finally go them on the phone via conference call and their overall thrust was that we didn't know what we were doing. We've asked, pleaded, begged for them to come fix this machine and they waited until three weeks before the warranty ran out to respond to us and said that they would send someone to look at it but insisted that we sign and additional agreement that negated our original(and still acitve) warranty. The struggles continue to this day. As a funny aside, before we purchased this machine they asked if we could send them one of our programs so they could prove it out on their machine. They are now using that program and part to advertise their lemon. Here it is making our parts:



    Oh! One more thing. The document that they wanted us to sign before working on the machine had us committing to taking down the conversation in THIS forum and also retracting our report to the BBB. Since we kind of like our freedom of honest and true speech, our machine sits here waiting for them to honor their legally contractual obligation to come fix it.

    http://onedropyoyos.com/yoyos/


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    Default Re: Cubic Machinery GT27/GT Mini

    So we continue to have turret issues and since we've received ZERO support from the manufacturer or the vendor/salesman(Alex Madsen at NxNW Machine Tool Works), we've had to start trying to fix this on our own. Today I took the cover off the tool turret and the first thing I see is the turret servo wrapped in a cheap plastic bag held in place with zip-ties. I'm assuming this is to keep oil and coolant off the servo. The bag was full of way oil as it had seeped in past the zip-ties and all the bag was doing was keeping it all contained around the servo. Yet another example of Cubic's "quality". Be warned.Cubic Machinery GT27/GT Mini-img_4456-jpg

    http://onedropyoyos.com/yoyos/


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    Default Re: Cubic Machinery GT27/GT Mini

    Quote Originally Posted by shawncnelson View Post
    So we continue to have turret issues and since we've received ZERO support from the manufacturer or the vendor/salesman(Alex Madsen at NxNW Machine Tool Works), we've had to start trying to fix this on our own. Today I took the cover off the tool turret and the first thing I see is the turret servo wrapped in a cheap plastic bag held in place with zip-ties. I'm assuming this is to keep oil and coolant off the servo. The bag was full of way oil as it had seeped in past the zip-ties and all the bag was doing was keeping it all contained around the servo. Yet another example of Cubic's "quality". Be warned.Cubic Machinery GT27/GT Mini-img_4456-jpg
    Shawn,

    I came across your post while surfing today. We have a Cubic GTV-42 so I was interested in your experience with
    Cubic. Your posts are well-written and precisely descriptive without being unreasonable or vindictive. (Though apparently
    you have cause to be so.)

    Our experience is a little different in that our machine has been reasonably reliable. But like you, we would never
    consider another because Cubic's support is so weak as to be essentially nil. We don't need much support, but when
    we do, we expect the mtb (machine tool builder) to at least appear to interested in solving a problem. We too had
    Fedek b/f problems early on that took many days and and unreturned calls to Cubic to resolve.

    If there is an "up" side to our Cubic experience it would have to be the Fagor control. As a long-time Fanuc guy I was
    reluctant to have anything else. I will say that in five years of 80 hrs. / week running the Fagor has "hiccuped" one time
    with an alarm. The alarm was descriptive enough to indicate a power supply fan had failed. We purchased a replacement
    for less than $20 bucks and were back in production quickly.

    Thanks for your posts. Potential Cubic buyers BEWARE !


    emexcee380



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    Default Re: Cubic Machinery GT27/GT Mini

    Here's some videos showing us tackling the latest of the problems.









    http://onedropyoyos.com/yoyos/


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