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Would you buy another Mazak?

SND

Diamond
Joined
Jan 12, 2003
Location
Canada
Hi,

Just wondering if any of you Mazak owners would buy another Mazak? There's quite a few posts about problems and about bad service. But say someone gives you 300K. What would you do? a new Mazak or look somewhere else?
 
I'd personally would take the 300k and go on a Mazak shopping spree. I've been programming, setting up and running Mazaks the last 13 years of my 34 years in the trade and I'd go spend the money and fill up my shop with mazaks.
My experience has been that Mazak service doesn't suck, it is just way expensive to have them come out to fix your machine.
What I've done is go out and find a good independent machine repair source and once your machine is out of warranty, get them to come out to do your repairs, it works wonders for us and saves a lot of money.
Good luck on spending the 300k

one happy Mazak Man here
 
We don't quite have the cash yet but its on the budget that we're hoping to get. Things are actualy looking good so far. If we would have had these machines last year they'd be paid for now. Lots of hoops to jump thru to get anything... Anyhow, we had talked to the Mazak rep a few months back. Unfortunatly I'm quite sure the machines recomended at the time are going to be too small for us to handle all our normal products. So 300K may not be enough for both a lathe and a mill.

Our products vary so much in size we'd pretty much need 2 lathes. Or we'll keep sourcing the tiny stuff and just stick to the larger money making parts which is our main product.

I'm the only machinist in the place and manual is all I ever ran. I was around cnc's a bit but never pushed the buttons. Good thing is I know how to make just about all the parts for our products manualy. So I'd need a good reliable machine that I can set and let go by itself and that won't require to much time. There is still a lot of stuff that I'd need to be doing manualy while the machines run.

I've heard good things about Mazaks programing aspects. Since many of our parts don't change. I assume that once all the programs are done it'll just be a matter of putting in the material, setting the tools. Checking the first couple parts that come off and letting it go. I do know that many of our parts are currently run on Mazaks at a shop in town.
 
300K for both a Mazak mill and a lathe might be tough depending on your size requirements. And alot of this is going to depend on your machine type requirements for the parts you're going to do.

Mazak service issues are mainly only a big problem related to certain service centers. Not all of them have this problem and certainly not all techs are the same. But, you're going to find this to be the case with many different machine builders. Which end of Canada are you in? And like Steelcutter stated, you can go with a private vendor and get service as well once the warranty is up. But, you may find that Mazak services your area quite well. I'd talk to other shops around you to get their feelings and responses.

But, if you're looking to add both, you may want to look into other machine makes. There are plenty of well established midline or lower level machines builders. And they make a fairly well built machine. It just won't have all the bells and whistles, speed, options, rigidity and the capabilities of high end equipment.

Being that this would be your first CNC, you may want to just consider one machine. Maybe the right size Mazak lathe would be better if you have a lot of round work you're doing. It's been my experience though, that shops buy just the one Mazak machine (Mill or Lathe), end up making so much money so fast, increase their capacity so quickly, that the shop ends up being able to afford more machines in a short amount of time.

Now, "would I buy another Mazak?" You bet I would.... and we're looking to do so right now. We're looking to add another FH-8800 HMC to a pallet line. We have dozens of Mazaks and will likely add a dozen more in the near future. Am I biased? Possibly, but just so you know, we also have Makino, Mori, Matsuura, Haas, Kitamura and several other makes as well. I'm a Mazak guy and sticking to it.....
 
Hey guys, it doesn't take a millionaire to buy good mazaks and they don't have to be bought new, check this one out @ e-bay, buy it now price is 59.9k

I recently saw one sell for 39k, live tooling, bar feeder loaded.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Mazak-SQT10M-Three-Axis-CNC-Lathe-Mazatrol-T-Plus_W0QQitemZ250041833577QQihZ015QQcategoryZ97230QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

73_1.JPG


good luck shopping
 
A fair amount of the parts in our products are only lathe work. But there are some components that do have a fair amount of mill work and its not nice mill work either. If we were to do all the lathe work on the pieces. I doubt any shop would be interested in finishing the millwork for us. Although just on parts without mill work we could probably still justify the machine. We defenatly need a good reliable machine that holds tight tolerances. 80% of it is stainless. some aluminium and bronze, then its onto hastelloy, A286, monel, titanium and such.

Mazaks seem to hold their price value for a long time. Like that 10 year old QT10 on ebay for 60K. A brand new nexus 200 which is probably its curent equivalent starts at like 80 0something. a QTN250 starts at 98K. Not bad, mills seems to be where the money really goes up fast.
 
DUHHHHHHH.. :rolleyes:

A "star" for steelcutter.... The used market is a good way to go to. We just sold a bunch of Mazak lathes with barfeeders and live tooling, VMCs and HMCs. Yes, you can get these machines in good condition for a fraction of the price.

The only thing is, being that this is your first CNC, make sure you have someone with who knows his stuff and you trust to go along with you to check out these used machines. There are a lot of things you need to keep an eye out for when buying used. Something that you (and many) take for granted when buying new....

:D
 
Thanks for the star "psychomill" and I agree with you in your statement about:
" make sure you have someone with who knows his stuff and you trust to go along with you to check out these used machines."

I always like to go check out the machine and set up a run off of my nastiest job and closest tolerances, even if you have to pay the owner for "machine time" it is worth it. ((( most of the time they won't charge you for machine time, especially if you are going thru a machine seller")))

good luck!
 
I love them. I been around alot of other machines and they are one of the best.They are great for short runs.
Also when its time to trade them in or sale them they hold there value.
 
I ran a Mazak SQT15M 1995 for the past couple of years and it had an 8" chuck but we made many very small parts on it. It was productive for us to cut lots of 10-32 & 1/4-20 threads, even some #5-40. There is no real reason you can't use such a machine for your large and small jobs alike.

We had a nice Royal 5C collet chuck, worked so nice. Even polished items by hand before removing them from the chuck as it doesn't have any dangerous jaws.

It was the only CNC machine I have been around but it was very reliable and easy to program.
Make sure to get fixed (synchronous) tapping and consider through spindle tapping if you are going to be possibly doing deep holes.
 
Some of our stuff is about 14" OD. We also have things with bores up to 16" deep at between 6" and 9" diameter. So I think we'd need a machine with quite a bit of bed lenght to get any boring bars that deep. While some work is only .250" dia and some .187" bores.

I'd really like to get to learn to run these machines.
 
About 95% of our machines our Mazaks. Over the last 12 years we have purchased 18 Mazak Machines. I have always been a big Mazak Fan, but after getting in this last new machine I think I would consider other options on my next purchase.
We got in a QTN-450. The machine came in damaged, scratched, missing parts and much more. Hooked it to power and we got program gliches. For example, "this program has performed an illegal opperation and needs to close". It did this 3 out of 5 boots. Apparently the New Matrix is not a proven solid core program. It has a lot of gliches. One alarm screen came up with garbage that I couldnt read or even understand.
The voice advisor is WORTHLESS. Not unless your have your ears 6-8 inches away from the screen you wont hear anything the advisor says.

They went from Steel Way Covers to cloth. They probably wont hold up even the first year.

Before the machine was removed from the truck I counted 14 screws and one cover that had fallen off or out of the machine.

After getting the machine on and stable, we turned on the spindle. UH-OH! Vibration through out the whole machine. The Spindle was rubbing the outer ring and vibrating the whole machine.

Mazak doesn't know when they can come in and fix it or install it. It might be next week, was the last I was told. I guess they let their guys there work when they want to and they can't forsee or use a schedule.

So in short, I think I would consider my options. Mazak has made a lot of changes in the last year. I feel they have made a lot of design changes and will use the end users as the testers.
 
Okie, it sounds like they shipped you a machine that was assembled on a Friday afternoon! I'd tell them to shove that P.O.S. and bring one with a functioning control and undamaged parts.

As for me, I've only been a Mazak user for 3 years, but I don't think I'll ever purchase another brand of machine.
 
Joe,
It seems like the newer machines are becoming more cheaply made. We have a machine that is 14 months old and so far had to replace parts in the tailstock. Replace the way cover wipers, and had a 12" fan blade come flying off the hydraulic chiller. So I dont think that I just got a lemon, but Mazak is cutting corners in a few areas.
 
So I dont think that I just got a lemon, but Mazak is cutting corners in a few areas.
Their vendors are.... This has been addressed by many of us larger customers to Mazak and is being "looked" into. Let the inquisition begin....

As far as the damaged machine... with as many machines you guys have purchased in the last few years, I'd be kicking some Sales a$$. There's no reason for them not to be attempting to fix the situation... even if it was your only Mazak machine.

Every builder has a "lemon". It's the nature of things. But being pro-active (in this case re-active) to control the situation would go a long way to uphold their name and more importantly, customer satisfaction....

:D :D
 
Well that is very good information. We had been recomended the QTN250 and I thought a bigger model was what we need. I sure don't want a 450 now.

Have they made any major changes to the SlantTurn series in the last couple years? have they gone down in quality?

What other brands would you look at in the future?
 
SND, I was just in a shop last week with 4 bar fed Nexus QTN250MSY machines, all of them had replaced mid-late nineties Super Quick Turn machines. The owner of the shop insists they are every bit as good and reliable as the older SQT machines.

In fact, when I asked him about the rumors of the Nexus machines being, "cheaply made", his response was to laugh, and then use a few phrases that can't be repeated on this family friendly website! These machines run about 18 hours a day, with 9-10 of it unattended.
 
I am currently running a Mazak Quick Turn 15 that has a T2 controller & is 19 years old. I have run Okuma's, Index's, Hardinge's, & some more that I can't think of, & this little OLD Mazak is by far more accurate, & durable than any machine I have EVER run. The hardinge's were super sensitive, & take a long time to recover from a crash. You have to go through a sequence to get the torque limiters reset, & then you have to hold keys down while powering up toget it to reset. We had one guy crash, & did not realize that he was holding the wrong key & he erased ALL of the parameters. The screen even lost it's color!!! The Okumas were very nice machines, & not so particular, but still had many quirks. The Index's were very unususl & had Siemens conrtollers that were very funky. All in all the Mazak is soooo much easier & the programming is a breeze compared to the Fanuc "conversational" controls!!!!
 








 
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