Hi all, first post here!
I have a small business, and looking to bring my very small production in-house for various reasons. My parts can be made 95% on a CNC lathe, only one off-center hole needs to be drilled and tapped (parts are about 3" diameter 304 stainless discs), though if I do get live tooling capabilities, there are a couple other cool features I could mill and engrave.
Since I don't have the cash for a new lathe (and don't want to risk having a large monthly payment), the wisdom around here seems to be to shop around for a used production machine rather than go with something new that wouldn't be as rigid or fast.
My main concern, other than not knowing much about if the mechanical parts are any good (planning to find someone to help me there if I go this route), is the old control systems. My parts really need to be done in CAD/CAM, and I don't need conversational or canned cycles, just the ability to move over g-code from a computer. I have seen it may be possible to retrofit a decent modern control system into the old lathes, and while I could probably figure out everything myself, I would ideally like to reduce the time it takes to be up and running, and focus on making my parts and learning that.
I know the whole "bringing it in-house" is a bag of worms, and while I know many people would say send it to a good shop, it's more or less off the table at this point. I have to do whatever it takes to machine these myself, or give up on the project entirely.
Hoping everyone here can give me a good starting point with what brand machine to look at, and how old is too old to retrofit a new control system. I've seen some old Mazak lathes on eBay that look nice and all, if only they had a way to plug in something other than a floppy! I do have to figured out how to find someone I trust to look them over mechanically as well.
My business partner thinks we should shop new only for those reasons, it's just that at our $30k budget for the machine, I don't think we get a whole lot other than a Tormach or other Chinese built lathe (AutomateCNC, Fryer?). We have priced out a Romi, Haas and several others new, but they come in around $50k at the cheapest before tooling and that's pretty much what we can spend after tooling and other new shop expenses.
Any suggestions welcome!
I have a small business, and looking to bring my very small production in-house for various reasons. My parts can be made 95% on a CNC lathe, only one off-center hole needs to be drilled and tapped (parts are about 3" diameter 304 stainless discs), though if I do get live tooling capabilities, there are a couple other cool features I could mill and engrave.
Since I don't have the cash for a new lathe (and don't want to risk having a large monthly payment), the wisdom around here seems to be to shop around for a used production machine rather than go with something new that wouldn't be as rigid or fast.
My main concern, other than not knowing much about if the mechanical parts are any good (planning to find someone to help me there if I go this route), is the old control systems. My parts really need to be done in CAD/CAM, and I don't need conversational or canned cycles, just the ability to move over g-code from a computer. I have seen it may be possible to retrofit a decent modern control system into the old lathes, and while I could probably figure out everything myself, I would ideally like to reduce the time it takes to be up and running, and focus on making my parts and learning that.
I know the whole "bringing it in-house" is a bag of worms, and while I know many people would say send it to a good shop, it's more or less off the table at this point. I have to do whatever it takes to machine these myself, or give up on the project entirely.
Hoping everyone here can give me a good starting point with what brand machine to look at, and how old is too old to retrofit a new control system. I've seen some old Mazak lathes on eBay that look nice and all, if only they had a way to plug in something other than a floppy! I do have to figured out how to find someone I trust to look them over mechanically as well.
My business partner thinks we should shop new only for those reasons, it's just that at our $30k budget for the machine, I don't think we get a whole lot other than a Tormach or other Chinese built lathe (AutomateCNC, Fryer?). We have priced out a Romi, Haas and several others new, but they come in around $50k at the cheapest before tooling and that's pretty much what we can spend after tooling and other new shop expenses.
Any suggestions welcome!