Hey guys, my boss just gave me the green light to track down a CNC lathe, with the catch that our budget is basically restricted to under 20 grand. Also, the job that we will be running mostly on it is made from 2" diameter pipe, so it needs to have the appropriate spindle bore for that. I've contacted some shops and used/new machine sellers locally to get started, and wanted to hear some ideas, and answer some questions:
-any idea how much it costs to freight a machine this size across the country? In case I were to find a good deal in eastern Canada etc. We are located in Vancouver BC. Weight for machines like this would be between 3000-9000 pounds.
-cost to adequately retrofit a manual machine to do the job? Not sure if this is a cost effective solution, I know there are companies that do this work or I could look at doing it myself... we need to get decent performance out of it but nothing too extreme in terms of high tolerance, higher RPM or extreme rigidity. Something that could perform like a Haas TL machine would probably do.
I've got a ton of experience on Okuma CNC turning (8000+ hours over 6 different models) but not with any other makes/controls so it should be interesting
-any idea how much it costs to freight a machine this size across the country? In case I were to find a good deal in eastern Canada etc. We are located in Vancouver BC. Weight for machines like this would be between 3000-9000 pounds.
-cost to adequately retrofit a manual machine to do the job? Not sure if this is a cost effective solution, I know there are companies that do this work or I could look at doing it myself... we need to get decent performance out of it but nothing too extreme in terms of high tolerance, higher RPM or extreme rigidity. Something that could perform like a Haas TL machine would probably do.
I've got a ton of experience on Okuma CNC turning (8000+ hours over 6 different models) but not with any other makes/controls so it should be interesting
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