New Smooth, and Celos controls. ?

At first I was just gonna put this in the Mazak section, but since Mori/DMG went to touch screen too figured might as well put it here and maybe get more opinions cause these new things haven't been talked about much on here yet. Do you guys feel like this is all a good move toward the future and a big step up from the regular control display/button set up of the last 30-40yrs?

For you guys that have seen and used the new Mazak smooth controls. How do you like it, ease of use, and such?
From the pictures I can find, it looks very dark with only a little orange trim(back light?) of some buttons, (maybe just crappy pictures but color scheme sure seems to have been picked more for "cool trendy appearance for the kids" than industrial practicality). Although there's a lot less buttons now that most of it is touch screen so maybe it doesn't matter too much ?

I guess I'm struggling to get over this new "Smart Phone People" design generation thing that mazak and mori/dmg decided to go with. The appearance of a couple versions of the celos appear more light colored/brighter but some have 2 touch screens. I seem to remember some people here mentioning lag issues somewhere with some of those celos, is that all fixed now?

Talking of touch screens, how are those working out in a shop environment? Any word yet on how much harder/easier or cost difference to repair/replace vs the older button style that usually seemed to go for the life of the machine? I can't help but feel these are gonna be more trouble and $$$ down the road, hopefully I'm wrong. Never thought I'd say this, but in shopping for a new machine when I see a fanuc now... I kinda feel more at ease.

Not the brand your talking about, but we have 2, 2006 hurco's with touch screens that are still working good to this day. There are still soft keys with it but half of what you do is on the screen. We are a pretty dirty shop too, lots of dust and grime.

I felt the same way with phones when they went to touch screen and those hold up pretty well too. I dont think I would worry about going touch screen.

touch screens great until they break.... can you run the machine with a regular monitor and a mouse? Its going to happen eventually that you need the machine and the screen rolls snake eyes.....

WILLEO6709 said:

touch screens great until they break.... can you run the machine with a regular monitor and a mouse? Its going to happen eventually that you need the machine and the screen rolls snake eyes.....

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That can be said about any component.

We have the new Smooth X on our Integrex, and the Celos on our new NLX. When I walk away from either of those controllers, and go back to an older one, it feels clunky. I still use a flip-phone, but I do like the new touch screens better than the old controllers.

WILLEO6709 said:

touch screens great until they break.... can you run the machine with a regular monitor and a mouse? Its going to happen eventually that you need the machine and the screen rolls snake eyes.....

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Practically all modern controls are windows or linux on the front end. Which means USB devices like keyboards and mice are plug and play.

I have acramatic 2100's- been using them since 1996. I don't recall much else ( maybe an okuma osp ) that has been running a touchscreen for that long. That being said I have 3 of these machines left- have not had a functional touch screen for over 10 years- it was just not cost effective to spend the bucks to keep repairing them when I could buy a 50 dollar used monitor and a 7 dollar mouse compared to a $500+ touchscreen repair. I would be talking to someone who had one out of warranty to see their opinion. As long as you can limp in old school they can be great, just make sure there is a limp in option.

It took me about a week to get used to the new SmoothX control on our new Integrex i-400S. After that, I had to re-learn to not try to swipe around on the monitors of the older machines.

The SmoothX control is VERY nice to use. Zero complaints other than you wish other machines had it too. Lol.

You know, a properly designed touch screen might hold up better in a shop than a keyboard - doesn't need all of those holes for keys to poke through. (But good keyboards hold up reall well too.)

I dislike several things about our DMG-Moris with the Siemens 840D and the newest one with Celos, but the touch screen isn't really the clumsy thing about the new operating system. It's worked fine for about a year now.

But the DMG's with siemens and Heidenhain still have keyboard ?

Panza said:

But the DMG's with siemens and Heidenhain still have keyboard ?

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Yes, the physical keyboard is pretty much identical to the 2010 machine. You rely on the touch screen to navigate around menus etc., while the ordinary machining tasks (feed control, start/stop) are done with real buttons/knobs.

We have one NHX8000 with MappsIV and one with Celos at work.


I'll take the older machine over the newer one any day of the week. Physical buttons give a better more tactile feel. The touchscreen also seems a bit slow in response and all you get is an annoying beep to let you know a key has be pressed.


The key layout on the older controller (both are Fanuc31 under the hood) is also a lot better, IMHO. Less softkeys and finding where things are. The machine with Celos is much fancier and less utilitarian looking in aesthetics, which I like. But at the end of the day: I'd much rather be running the older machine.



my .02

Thanks for the relies so far.
I assuming there's not too many issues with the touch screen selecting functions next to the ones you put your finger on?
I've had that happen a lot with other type of touch screens, I guess they must use a much better type on these controls so reduce the chance of that happening.

SND said:

......but since Mori/DMG went to touch screen too

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Mori has had touch screens on some of their controls since ~1995. I have one on a 1996 Mori that is still the original. It uses Mitsu hardware.

A bit different to get used to at first, but after a while seems quite natural. It has its quirks like anything. The only thing that still bugs me is that if you have an offset page displayed, the coolant on/off touchbutton is not displayed. You have to go to another screen (position, program, etc.) before it appears. Since it is Mitsu, I could edit the ladder and wire in a physical coolant switch, but it does not bother me bad enough to do that.

I didn't know some brands had been using touch screen that long. All older controls I've seen pictures of while looking at used machines looked to me like they had plenty of regular buttons for all the normal stuff on there, I figured the screen was just a screen. Interesting. I guess if some of those older ones went 20+yrs, the newer stuff should be a lot better.

Anyhow, at this point its looking a lot like it'll be another fanuc Oi for me.

SND said:

Anyhow, at this point its looking a lot like it'll be another fanuc Oi for me.

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Looking specifically for that control, or the iron pushing you that way?

I've got customers with the Celos and the new Smooth control. Neither have complained, and I think the Mazak in particular made big improvments in other areas, and added in some nice UI stuff as well. I wouldn't be scared of a touch-screen control. Like others have mentioned, you may be able to plug in a standard keyboard as well if you wanted.

Jashley73 said:

Looking specifically for that control, or the iron pushing you that way?

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The price differences are what's doing it.

SND said:

The price differences are what's doing it.

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What else have you looked at? (That comes with a Fanuc 0i...)

Jashley73 said:

What else have you looked at? (That comes with a Fanuc 0i...)

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After checking with the big 3(mazak/mori/okuma), Doosan was next in line for me and most interesting, inquired with hyundai-wia as well, may still check samsung.
There was also a couple taiwan brands but I'm trying to not go down to that. There's not really much else to look into it seems. Almost starting to consider looking at Haas... or maybe hurco but I don't get the fuzzies about either one.

I decided to check a bit into Nakamura as well, 2 models seem interesting so I'll see what the $'s say.