what to look for in a used Daewoo Puma

I'm looking at a late 90's Daewoo Puma 230 with sub spindle. what do I need to look for and what questions do I need to ask the seller? it has a Fanuc control and reasonable hours for the age, I'm not familiar with Daewoo machines, I just know they have a good reputation and still have good support. any input would be greatly appreciated.

thanks!

We run a 2001 Puma 230 single spindle day in and day out & it still holds tenths. We've replaced a lot of things, but mainly air lines & air regulators. If it's been sitting for any length of time, plan on replacing that stuff. If the lines are slime green, they're factory.
What to beware of is the spindle. It is not a cartridge spindle, meaning you can't "buy" a new one. The bearings have to be replaced on site & it's a doozie of a job. If they're having weird sizing repeatability issues, out of roundness, or any noise from it, I would shy away.
That said, Doosan, well DNS now, still stocks a ton of parts for these machines & their support is indeed great.

Best of Luck!
A. Meador

AMeador said:

We run a 2001 Puma 230 single spindle day in and day out & it still holds tenths. We've replaced a lot of things, but mainly air lines & air regulators. If it's been sitting for any length of time, plan on replacing that stuff. If the lines are slime green, they're factory.
What to beware of is the spindle. It is not a cartridge spindle, meaning you can't "buy" a new one. The bearings have to be replaced on site & it's a doozie of a job. If they're having weird sizing repeatability issues, out of roundness, or any noise from it, I would shy away.
That said, Doosan, well DNS now, still stocks a ton of parts for these machines & their support is indeed great.

Best of Luck!
A. Meador

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I appreciate the input! At what hours would you be concerned about spindle life? This machine has about 11k I believe

I just bought a late 90's 10HC. Not a bad machine at all. Daewoo does offsets different from everybody else. All Puma people seem to think it's normal and they don't tell you it's all jacked up from how everyone else does it.

On mine the oil return hose from the chuck actuator was undersize from the factory causing hydraulic fluid to blow out of the rotary union at high RPM. So figuring out where all the oil came from, cleaning up the mess and fixing the original problem was kind of a dumb thing to have to do on a 25 year old machine.

Last place I worked at had a Daewoo Puma 10 HC. It was a 1992 vintage machine with Fanuc 0T-C control. Ran two shifts a day all the time, never an issue, other than normal maintenance. When I left, it was still chugging parts out and holding size.

I'm a little late to the party on this thread, but I purchased a Daewoo 230 brand new in 2000. Less than three years later my spindle was making noise, and I got very little assistance from Daewoo. I dismantled it and could see coolant was making it's way into the bearing area, because at that time, they didn't provide any drains. By 2005 magically an external DRAIN line was appearing on their lathes, despite them telling me no one else had any problems. I cleaned and regreased my bearings, reinstalled the spindle and it's running today. I DID do something to keep the coolant out, but that was 17 years ago and I don't remember my fix. I DID get the blueprints for the spindle labyrinth seals and I thought their tolerances were a MILE wide. I manufacture a series of labyrinth seals for grinders, and my clearances are a TENTh of the Daewoo lathes, and I don't have high pressure coolant blasting at my spindles.

This was the ONLY design flaw I can say this machine has had, as it's twenty two years old and I still run it.