Best beginner machining center no programming experience

eastonmade · Dec 30, 2016

barbter said:
A mate who's company does a lot of oil and gas has a couple of LPM's and love them.
You're never going to set the world alight with 8k rpm spindle and a slowish umbrella toolchanger, but you'll fall in love with the control. It's the easiest out there.
If you are serious, I'd have a good look at that used one.

I don't mind the tool changer be a little slow. I think it will produce as I need. But just wondering on the spindle speed. I will be using a 2" face mill with carbide inserts to machine the edge on my knives. Would I be able to run it that fast? The edges of the kvives are not precise at all. If they were within .050 that would be fine. What kind of a travel speed and how much of a cut should I expect out of a machine like this?

I will definitely take a look. They have 3 or 4 used ones in stock. I really wasn't planning on buying one until april but it might be the right deal for me.

Chip Chester · Dec 30, 2016

How old is the current machinist, and how big is the shop? On the off chance he's ready to slip into retirement, see if he'd like to 1) sell you his stuff and programs 2) come over for a year and get you going on programming and operation of your stuff and 3) give you the nod on other customers as well.

I realize the situation could be nowhere near that, too. What's your succession plan and glide path?

It's good you're in a position where you have an ongoing product, and suppliers you're not mad at (except for maybe price.)

Chip

eastonmade · Dec 30, 2016

the other shop is owned by my father. there is 40 guys working there now. they build firewood processors and offer welding, millwright and machining services to the local area.

Right now it takes them roughly an hour to do a part (knife). I think with good machining center I could get it down to 20 minutes or so. They cut them on a manual bed mill right now. I also have them do all the holes for all the bushings. 6 per machine. They plasma cut a rough hole when they initially cut the part then they use an indexable end mill on a lillian with an accurite mill power to get it to the correct size.

I'm not mad about the price, but I keep their guys busy. It would be much more cost effective to do it myself now that I have the demand for the machine, and enough capital to purchase what I need.

72bwhite · Dec 30, 2016

Making the blade is all about the right fixture.
And don't get to hung up on running a large face mill,
wouldn't be surprised if it can't be done faster with a good say 3/4 carbide endmill
it's all in the right tool and the right tool paths.
You would be surprised how much steel you can remove with the right end mill with 20 hp behind it.
same thing with those holes just punch a hole in the center with a drill bit then interpolate most of it out if you want it really precise and perfect you can bore the last bit to size.

You want an enclosed vmc with a tool changer, other wise just get a big old KT manual mill
and brute force it

94 or newer Fadal vmc4020 in good shape will get it done on the cheap,
a stable reliable simple controller, good parts availability.

forget that conversational programing crap that's for one off simple parts.
once you have the gcode program next time you want to make that part you load it
set you tool lengths the origin, push the green button and come back when it's done.

there are yuotube videos on how to do it even

SpeedsandFeeds · Jan 17, 2017

Milltronics machines are easy conversational programming . Hurco is good too.....

706jim · Jan 17, 2017

Conversational programming: You program while machine waits.

aj · Jan 18, 2017

Davis In SC said:
Hurco......

Yep. If you can speak English you can probably run a Hurco.

Jeremy63 · Jan 18, 2017

eastonmade said:
There seems to be tons of the 4020 fadals for sale. Is there is something I should look for specifically to make my life easier? Is there anything that is commmon that breaks on them that I can watch out for? Does anyone have a reputable used equipment dealer?

Thanks again for all the help and feedback guys. It is really appreciated.

is this what I'm looking for

USED FADAL VMC-42 CNC VERTICAL MILL 21 4.2.2" 1 RPM VMC 32 MP CONTROL | eBay

I bought a 2003 Fadal 4020 with the 32MP Control from Champion machine just a few months ago and have been very pleased with it. It was a bit on the higher end of pricing at $31,500, but it came with a 4th axis installed. Only 6100 hours. And the best part? The ONLY thing I've had to do was install a Calmotion DNC setup, which I had already planned on:

USBCNC-FAD-INT - Calmotion

Great guys to deal with. If you do decide to go the fadal route(which with my experience, I definetely would), I would not be afraid to go with that machine. I'm not too sure on the pricing, someone else would have to chime in on that.

It has a very simple control. I was running parts the first day I had it. And I had never even seen a Fadal in person before that.
And the box ways have proven to be very rigid for me. Heavy cuts with extended reach tooling is no issue at all.

Jeremy63 · Jan 18, 2017

And also, I have used Fusion 360 for CAM with it. Download it and give the free trial a shot. After that it's still very cheap(even free for small shops). Their generic post works flawlessly out of the gate running format 2.

engineerjack · Jan 24, 2017

I do similar work for my own specialised compressors and I use a King Rich KR-B4V with ProtoTRAK VM. Huge bed, very accurate, wide range of fixture sizes with such a large work envelope for a wide range of components that I make. I draw up on Autocad 2017 in 3D, send to Inventor HSM as a .sat file and then use the CAM function to generate the toolpath and then send to the ProtoTRAK VM via a network, all as a Fanuc g-code file. All Way easy and very clean. Inventor HSM, while a bit deep of a program to wade through in the beginning, is spectacular for prototype work and tool path verification. I'm buying another XYZ 5000 from Southwestern Industries through a supplier down here in Australia. The conversational programming makes it very fast to get simple jobs done. The g-code generated by Inventor HSM makes the ProtoTRAK able to do anything. My feeds/speeds are a bit slower than a dedicated VMC but it's for a multiple of parts and prototypes for my own specialised business so no worries there at all. I'm looking at the LPM from Southwestern Industries but the small table is making me think twice about the higher price. Sure a tool changer is great but while I'm waiting on one portion of the g-code to finish, I'm doing other things in the shop so I'm not really out of time waiting around to change a tool.

One day, I'll get a bigger shop and sink a few dollars in to a dedicated VMC with all the goodies attached. Until then, I'll keep paying off what I have and build it up, brick by brick. This is part time after hours work so I'm not stressed about time..........

moonlight machine · Jan 24, 2017

engineerjack said:
I do similar work for my own specialised compressors and I use a King Rich KR-B4V with ProtoTRAK VM. Huge bed, very accurate, wide range of fixture sizes with such a large work envelope for a wide range of components that I make. I draw up on Autocad 2017 in 3D, send to Inventor HSM as a .sat file and then use the CAM function to generate the toolpath and then send to the ProtoTRAK VM via a network, all as a Fanuc g-code file. All Way easy and very clean. Inventor HSM, while a bit deep of a program to wade through in the beginning, is spectacular for prototype work and tool path verification. I'm buying another XYZ 5000 from Southwestern Industries through a supplier down here in Australia. The conversational programming makes it very fast to get simple jobs done. The g-code generated by Inventor HSM makes the ProtoTRAK able to do anything. My feeds/speeds are a bit slower than a dedicated VMC but it's for a multiple of parts and prototypes for my own specialised business so no worries there at all. I'm looking at the LPM from Southwestern Industries but the small table is making me think twice about the higher price. Sure a tool changer is great but while I'm waiting on one portion of the g-code to finish, I'm doing other things in the shop so I'm not really out of time waiting around to change a tool.

One day, I'll get a bigger shop and sink a few dollars in to a dedicated VMC with all the goodies attached. Until then, I'll keep paying off what I have and build it up, brick by brick. This is part time after hours work so I'm not stressed about time..........

I have 3 cnc's with manual tool changers,......their will not be a 4th and their never should have been the first.

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