xa-mont
Hot Rolled
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2014
- Location
- Victoria, Australia
Hey guys,
I'm looking to upgrade some of my machinery (all part of my long term plan to get my business set up with the capability I want to have, before leaving my day job) and I'm looking for recommendations of what to look for, and if anyone knows of anything around.
I currently have a mid 80's mazak VQC20/40a, a mid 80's QT10n and a mid 90's goodway bar fed twin spindle lathe (very small capacity, but magazine loads 4m bars)
I think my best bet would be to first upgrade my VMC, and keep the VQC because at this stage if it goes down I'm without milling capabilities. Ideally I would like something with much more spindle speed (vqc is maxed at 4krpm... which it almost lives at) and definitely more controller speed. (I have to constantly up my smoothing in my CAM package to output less moves to limit the amount of pausing for contemplation that the controller has to do, I also have to drip feed a lot of what I do, due to program size limitations) Not too fussed if its horizontal or vertical both would have advantages and disadvantages for me.
On the lathe side of things, I think the best upgrade I could do would be to get more capability as far as getting something with a slightly larger bore than the QT10, and sith live tooling (y axis would be great, but isn't the easiest option to find on the second hand market.)
My theoretical budget would be $30k for each (so 60k total) on the lathe side I would also very much prefer Mazak for its mazatrol, but not too fussed on the milling side.
Any advise to offer up? should I consider going into more debt and looking at new machines? is there somewhere I should be keeping an eye on that I currently am not (grays, dovebid, machines4u, ebay, gumtree...)
cheers,
Trav
I'm looking to upgrade some of my machinery (all part of my long term plan to get my business set up with the capability I want to have, before leaving my day job) and I'm looking for recommendations of what to look for, and if anyone knows of anything around.
I currently have a mid 80's mazak VQC20/40a, a mid 80's QT10n and a mid 90's goodway bar fed twin spindle lathe (very small capacity, but magazine loads 4m bars)
I think my best bet would be to first upgrade my VMC, and keep the VQC because at this stage if it goes down I'm without milling capabilities. Ideally I would like something with much more spindle speed (vqc is maxed at 4krpm... which it almost lives at) and definitely more controller speed. (I have to constantly up my smoothing in my CAM package to output less moves to limit the amount of pausing for contemplation that the controller has to do, I also have to drip feed a lot of what I do, due to program size limitations) Not too fussed if its horizontal or vertical both would have advantages and disadvantages for me.
On the lathe side of things, I think the best upgrade I could do would be to get more capability as far as getting something with a slightly larger bore than the QT10, and sith live tooling (y axis would be great, but isn't the easiest option to find on the second hand market.)
My theoretical budget would be $30k for each (so 60k total) on the lathe side I would also very much prefer Mazak for its mazatrol, but not too fussed on the milling side.
Any advise to offer up? should I consider going into more debt and looking at new machines? is there somewhere I should be keeping an eye on that I currently am not (grays, dovebid, machines4u, ebay, gumtree...)
cheers,
Trav
. Timing and distance is an issue for me at the moment. I had to ban myself from grays for a while so i didn't find any deals too good to refuse..... had a quick look the other night and low and behold.... saw the lathes