Another Small machine question

Has anyone seen a Hardinge-Bridgeport DT480 P3 in action?

This looks similar to a Robodrill. Does it have a similar ability to do modest milling?

Nice looking little package.

Cool little machine!

I don't know about the "DT", which stands for "Drill & Tap", but there is a 480 VMC for milling on their web site:

http://www.hardingeus.com/index.asp?pageID=63&prodID=37

I wonder what they cost though?

Cheers,

BW

Not sure, but if you are looking for that type of machine, make sure you check out Brother. Good, reliable machine, at a more than reasonable price, and above excellent service.

The Drill and Tap designation on the Hardinge makes me wonder a little. But after seeing what the Robodrill mate does I got me thinking.


I checked out the Brother machines at Eastec this year. They seamed pretty nice. I just checked out their site and it could be a lot better.



I spent some time looking at what my more local dealers sold and ran into Supermax. The XV 560A looks decent. I don't know if it is in the 40K price range like some of the others.
http://www.octo.hr/images/strojevi/ycm_XV560A.jpg


I still like the looks of the little Sharp 2412. Could one of the Sharpies tell me what the reach in distance is?

Having fun looking at compact additions to the shop.


Happy New Year
ARB

This is a trivial comment, since I've never run one and I don't know the comparison in specs or in pricing, but the Brother drill/tap centers are some of the best fit-and-finished machine tools I have ever seen. Beefy castings, nothing on them was cheesy at all for a 30-taper. Very impressive. Wish they would do a small VMC.

We've bought 2 so far, the first will go in high volume production in Jan, after an extensive automation project. The second was delivered a couple weeks ago, and will undergo the same modifications. The fit, finish and workmanship on the machine is excellent. The machine is _simple_ and robust mechanically, which is a huge plus, much less to break and go wrong. It has the fastest C to C tool change of any of the machines in this category. The control is feature rich and one of the best I've worked with (and I work with a ton of different controls), this side of an 840D Siemens, even if it does use Fanucese for programming. The ease of which automation can be added to this machine is great. The only ceavate is the lack of a command to halt pre-buffering, but that can be worked around using blank blocks in the NC program.
The machine is user friendly.
We looked at most of the machines in this category during an extensive investigation as to the best machine for our project. Specifications were given to the MTB's for a very tough application. Yamazen was the only representative of the MTB's that seemed to actually work on it. The others either dismissed it right off, never replied, or strung it along with bulls*** and wasting our time. We couldn't even get a quote out of Methods for a Robodrill, they apparently deemed a trade show was more important than working on our project and providing us a quote (or at least that's the excuse I got after 12 weeks of waiting on a response after our meetings). It would be extremely difficult for me to look at Methods for any future machine purchases.
Yamazen (Brother distributor in the US), on the other hand, had everyone in the company, up to and including both the CEO of Yamazen and the CEO of Brother working on the project. They have both visited our facility to see the application and discuss what they could do to meet our needs. There was absolutely no BS tossed around, everything was very honest and above board, especially about what the machine could and couldn't do. They did hours of testing, Engineering, and brainstorming working on our project without even a promise of a PO. Any information I wanted, or needed, was in my hands either the day I asked, or the next working day. Any testing I asked for was done in a very timely manner, usually the next day. This is by far and wide, one of the two best distributors I've ever been in contact with. I would highly recommend Yamazen and the Brother machines. You can contact Yamazen for more detailed information on the machines. 1-800-882-8558.

Road trip! You shouldn't be more than a couple hours away from HDNG/BDPT in Elmira, right? Unless of course your fighting 2 feet of snow! I know they have a showroom full of toys.

I can vouch for the quality of a new Bridgeport VMC. I bought an XV 710 earlier this year (how's that for being vague on the last day of the year) and even though the machine is from Tiawan, the quality is fabulous. (FWIW, Paid $47K)

Their website doesn't mention much of anything, let alone modest milling ability. Have you made real comparisons to the Brother and Robodrill? Oh, and Supermax doesn't give away their machines. They make a great product and charge accordingly.

What's a Drill & Tap machine good for anyway?

I use a "Drill and Tap" machine to mill aluminum. 24,000 rpm, 1/4" 3 fl. 250 IPM roughing pass. Plunge in and cut Full width. .150" deep. That's about as much as the vacuum fixture can take, BTW.

A little machine like that is plenty powerfull enough for small end mills. 1/4" and 1/8" end mills can only use so much horespower and/or rigidty. And if your parts need small end mills, they can be lightning fast.

So, they have their uses, beside drilling and tapping.

Road Trip!!

It is that time of year. I always seem to do my machine shopping when the snow gets deep.

I wish Elmira was 2 hours away. NY is a big state. It takes about 5 1/2 hours of hammer down driving to get there from here. It pretty much is a decent road trip to get anywhere to see machines. That would be 4 hours or more. Not like running down to Dempsey's in Richmond to pick up a Bridgeport but a road trip non the less.

I am going to call Hardinge on Wednesday and grill them about the DT480. They have a couple of used machines for a decent looking price. I like the 15K spindle and the fast tool changer. I don't care for the 30 taper. I am sure that it could run a 1/2 cutter in ZA12. Which is my primary concern.

Mostly right now I am checking out what is out there. I keep running into situations where another machining center would greatly help through put and still let me do mold work without affecting production work.

One of my main criteria is to keep the machine footprint small. I want to back it up to the lathe so it is easy for me to run both at the same time.

So what does kind of money are we talking for a 3 axis Brother?

I'm curious what the YCM might cost.

3T3D, What machine are you using?

Another Sharp question is how slow are the tool changes?

ARB

For the Brother, it depends on which machine you need. They have several different machines, each with it's own purpose. I suggest a call to the 800 number.

Tonytn36,

Could you let us know what your automation project cost?

I can't give specific numbers, as what we are doing (and most everything we do) is proprietary. This is a system I designed, for a specific set of operations in a very high volume production environment. I will say that the cost of the automation, which includes a 6 axis robot, additional servo's, plc and related electronics, custom designed workholding, engineering, etc approaches that of the cost of the machine itself, for the first one. After that, they get much cheaper because you do not have the engineering design costs. This is the first machine of it's kind, to say the least.

Well... From Fanuc you have 2 choices. The Robodrill and the RoboMate.

The Robodrill is the best selling 30 taper VMC on the market. We keep 5 million dollars in parts less than 400 miles away from you. We have 33 service engineers out of the Boston office, we have 1 in upstate NY, and one in NE PA as well.

All of the Fanuc products are made in Japan.

As far as milling parts, the Robomate is a nice choice as it has torque at the lower end and the 13.5 HP spindle.

An other thing the Mate comes with, is you are not paying for all the little add ons like a a coolant tank, and whatnot. Everything is included in one price.

The difference between the Mate and the Robodrill is speed. The Robodrill is 2x as fast in rapids, ATC times, tapping, and spindle acceleration. You are also limited to 4th axis only on a Mate. The Robodrill comes in 3 sizes, the most compact one being 3 feet wide.

Robodrill Info:
http://www.methodsmachine.com/documentation/machines/Fanuc/rdrillaie-e03.pdf

Robomate info:
http://www.methodsmachine.com/machines/fanuc/robomate.aspx

Robomate Milling Demo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgtBd_6ujGs

Robodrill Demo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXWMDN5amzE&feature=related

Demo II:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1uyvF-1AM4

If you have any questions let me know.

Brother

We have a 1998 Brother TC324 bought new. It has been the most reliable machine out of the 70 we have, including 60 Mori's of various vintage.
You will just have to get used to some of the "goofy" program codes.
IMO you cant go wrong with the Brother.

It's too bad they don't make slightly larger machines. We are seriously considering a new machine to handle some short run production. We need a larger X travel though. It might be weird to have a VMC with the same name on the front of it as the fax machine and the label maker.

Need more X, buy a long table Robodrill.

http://www.methodsmachine.com/machines/Fanuc/RoboDrill.aspx

VMCMAN,

Check you private messages.

vmcman said:

The Robodrill is the best selling 30 taper VMC on the market. We keep 5 million dollars in parts less than 400 miles away from you. We have 33 service engineers out of the Boston office, we have 1 in upstate NY, and one in NE PA as well.
If you have any questions let me know.

Click to expand...

The problem I had with Fanuc, was that it took 12 weeks (16 total) for them to tell me that they had a trade show, so, sorry, they couldn't be bothered by something so trivial as getting me a quote / proposal on the first of several machines. (And was promised a quote / proposal anyway, just so I would have a comparative, but I have _yet_ to receive it, 5 months later.) This was after being basically ignored on the initial phone call then flat out lied to (on several counts) and insulted in the first meeting.

I'm sorry, I do not, and cannot do business that way. I work for a very large (>$7B/yr), international Tier 1 Automotive supplier, we do not have the time, and simply cannot put up with BS, lies, and ineptitude. There are drop dead dates we have to meet, there is no choice. You meet the dates, or you shut the doors.
While the RoboDrill may be an excellent machine, from my experience, and the experience of others in our corporation while dealing with Fanuc, I cannot put any faith whatsoever in the service behind a RoboDrill.

(vmcman, If you want to take any further discussion on this issue private, feel free.)

Well... I dont know the situation you speak about. And I am sorry that you have a sour taist in your mouth about Fanuc and Methods. We should take this off line and talk in private and see if we can get to the bottom of what was going on. Dont know if i can fix anything there but it wont stop me from trying. We have thousands of happy Robodrill customers, and Methods reputation speaks for its self. We pride ourselfs on honesty, and would not make the investment in a huge service department or tens of millions of dollars in parts if we did not believe in serving the customer.

vmcman said:

Well... I dont know the situation you speak about. And I am sorry that you have a sour taist in your mouth about Fanuc and Methods. We should take this off line and talk in private and see if we can get to the bottom of what was going on. Dont know if i can fix anything there but it wont stop me from trying. We have thousands of happy Robodrill customers, and Methods reputation speaks for its self. We pride ourselfs on honesty, and would not make the investment in a huge service department or tens of millions of dollars in parts if we did not believe in serving the customer.

Click to expand...

Agreed, and I would certainly appreciate that.

Just as a note, we do have a couple of Fanuc machines (not robodrills) from Methods on our floor. And so far, those have been ok, and as far as I know no service issues to date, but they haven't needed it either. Those are in more of a job shop, and not subjected to the rigors of a 24/7 high volume production environment.