5 Axis purchase, yes or no?

Houdini16 said:

You know what I'm gonna say....made in China, not even with your money! HAHA

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you have no idea what you're missing out on my friend!

Garwood said:

In the general sense I agree it makes total sense to have thick floors. Concrete itself is very cheap. The labor to install it is what you mostly pay for and adding a few extra inches isn't that much more money.

That said, your argument doesn't really make sense. Haas needs the concrete because it doesn't have the iron/rigidity. The Makino has the iron/rigidity to stand alone on 3 points.

I'm only bringing it up because you say you want to work smarter, get more automated and make more parts with the same or less labor. Shitcan those turd Haas's you got and get a couple nice HMC's in place. You don't need 12" of concrete, especially not for a 3 point machine like a Makino.

You can dream about a pallet pool if you want to or you can just capitalize on the built in pallet changer and add some nice stones and fixtures. Not that big of a deal to swap pallets with a pallet changer.

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with makino, the issue is you're putting all that extra weight on only 3 points, so typical 4-6" concrete is not strong enough, especially with the crazy fast rapids. it'll destroy the concrete.

Interesting, I found the pre-install sheet on a Makino 400mm HMC, it says "standard 6" commercial concrete floor is fine", but on the Mazak generic horizontal preinstall sheet I got from Mazak it shows 20" of concrete.
good times.

empower said:

you have no idea what you're missing out on my friend!

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They have one waiting for you.
GF Mikron E 500 for sale

empower said:

with makino, the issue is you're putting all that extra weight on only 3 points, so typical 4-6" concrete is not strong enough, especially with the crazy fast rapids. it'll destroy the concrete.

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Seen A55's, A51's, A 5 axis A77 and an A81 on 6" or less of decent concrete without any issues.

I also know of an old school Makino MC108 (28 tons of iron) sitting on a shitty thin barn floor cranking out parts that we can't talk about. It does fine, but it's only got like 700ipm rapids.

Houdini16 said:

They have one waiting for you.
GF Mikron E 500 for sale

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Save $100,000 over the haas, better design too, sure you don't want to take a look ?

Houdini16 said:

They have one waiting for you.
GF Mikron E 500 for sale

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i had an even better deal, but banks are cunts

You should check a Kitamura Horizontal Machining Center
check out this link : https://www.kitamura-machinery.com/products/kitamura-mycenterhx250ig-horizontal-machining-center/
It is a small footprint machine that may fit in your location right now it has a BigPlus 30 spindle taper so the tooing is cheap and it is wickedly fast and with a rotary pallet pool I seriously think it can eliminate the need for 3 of your haas vmc's just another option to consider.
For your proposition about buying the Brother MX300X3 machine, well if it works for you it'll work you can buy fifth axis vise with the base mount and that way you won't have to indicate a vise ever again bcz it'll snap back to the base mount within few thousands of repeteabality and beter of you can mount the studs on your stock and mount the stock directly to the base mount, program the parts and setup the tools in the machine fixture the part in the table and hit cycle start, make a setup sheet for each different part and when the job come back just set the machine up the same as you did the last time and boom it works like the last time and their feedio system is great for loading and unloading the machine check this video :
I think it really fits your application for short batch run's of 30-40 pcs you can just setup the machine put the blocks the robot will load and unload them while you are doing something else.
But the thing is I don't find it reasonable to buy a machine to run it 3 months a year so it won't tie up the production machines, I would rather get a pallet pool HMC that will run 2 shifts and when the ocasional job comes in just run the HMC for an extra shift.
My humble opinion, I don't know your situation like you do so do what suits you the best, and for 5 axis programming it is easy don't be affraid of it it just took me a week with Fusion360, which cam software you are using anyway ?

One of the best bang-for-the-buck machines for production small(ish) part machining is the Brother R450 pallet change machine. Compact money printing machine I have heard people say. They frequently replace 3 commodity VMCs for production. Why not one of these for your volume work and add a 4th to one of your current machines for the lower qty jobs that pop up?

BROTHERFRANK said:

One of the best bang-for-the-buck machines for production small(ish) part machining is the Brother R450 pallet change machine. Compact money printing machine I have heard people say. They frequently replace 3 commodity VMCs for production. Why not one of these for your volume work and add a 4th to one of your current machines for the lower qty jobs that pop up?

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Our constant volume work has 2 different part assemblies. One assembly would be fine, but, The one we make all day every day on 3 machines is 3 different pair of 1.5" round bars 24" long with machining on 3 sides. it would take far more than a single rotating table machine to replace them, each of the 3 pair each has its own totally different Left/Right fixturing/jaws. These are those parts where you remove more metal than you leave. A horizontal or a bar feed multitask lathe with a robot off loader would be the perfect machines for these. future purchase.

Orange Vise said:

Wouldn't be my first choice. I'd instead be looking at the U500. They're new to the market, but based off the proven S500 and T-200 platforms. We're getting a few of these later in the year.

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Yeah looks like the U500 is the better choice, and cheaper, here is what Yamazen said:
"
Biggest considerations for M vs U:

1. Price (U is similar or better)
2. Floorspace (U is better)
3. Milling capability (U is better because it’s a more rigid set up)
4. Control (U has the new D-00 control and the M has the C-00 which we’ve been selling for about a decade now)
5. Turning capability (only on M)
6. Availability (U isn’t available to ship until March, and M’s are available now) "

Houdini16 said:

Yeah looks like the U500 is the better choice, and cheaper, here is what Yamazen said:
"
Biggest considerations for M vs U:

1. Price (U is similar or better)
2. Floorspace (U is better)
3. Milling capability (U is better because it’s a more rigid set up)
4. Control (U has the new D-00 control and the M has the C-00 which we’ve been selling for about a decade now)
5. Turning capability (only on M)
6. Availability (U isn’t available to ship until March, and M’s are available now) "

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Yup, also the U500 has much more X travel, more weight capacity, bigger swing, torquier rotaries, better spindle reach, and a larger ATC.

I think turning would be the only reason to go with the M series.

U500Xd1 is very nice. The new M200Xd1 5AX also has the 28 Tool capacity and is currently the only Speedio available with full five capability as well as the turning if those features are wanted.