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Mazak Mazatrol controller prices?

Loco112

Aluminum
Joined
Jun 27, 2007
Location
Dallas, Texas. USA
Has anyone here ever priced a new Mazatrol Nexus controller to retrofit to your older Mazak VMC?

What were the numbers and how competitive was it with; Fanuc, Siemens and the other market leading controller mfg'ers?
 
I had the phone call with Mazak (with a great guy their) the other day and they were not interested in doing any retrofits where the bill is less than huge(!), and they really want multiple machines of the same model to amortize their engineering costs for that model between multiple machines and invoices, so basically what "RGeo" told me was their story. They are not setup to retrofit anything for us little guys and their controllers are not engineered to be easily retrofitted in any way.

Mazak sent me to their only authorized retrofitter; Kentucky Rebuild Corp. I spoke to another great guy at KRC who was extremely helpful. He told me the same basic story and the same (big) numbers as Mazak, so (IMHO) its very clear (to me) that Mazak does not want to retrofit or update even their own old machines, and their controllers are not engineered to be retrofit friendly in any way.

Mazak, being one of the market leaders, gets enormous premiums on their prices for their new machines and making those sales is all they are interested in.

If you have an old Mazak, you are going to have to go to a different control manufacturers product to upgrade the controller on your machine..
 
gets enormous premiums on their prices for their new machines

when we purchased 2 new small footprint (maybe 12k lbers) vmc's (1-40, 1-50 taper both with 4th axis)last year they were less than the same thing from haas.

thats not "premium prices"
thats what it costs to build machine tools
 
what control is on the machine now? I worked on a M-5 that had been upgraded from mazak. It used to be a 6T Fanuc and now it has a TPlus. If you don't use Mazatrol you prob get mitsubishi to upgrade it.
 
If I'm going to upgrade the controller.... I'm going to upgrade the machine....
Unless I'm running some really obscure or one off machine, the machine ain't worth having a new control on it or the logistics. I'd rather put it down on a Nexus machine all together.

for that matter... there's pleanty of new control models out there on the market that are probably around the same cost as a retrofit and down time costs associated. And as Whippin'g boy said... It's not that much of "premium cost" as one might think when siding it up to a comparably equipped "cheap" machine....

Going from a 6T to a T+ is one thing. It also probably wasn't overly difficult since depending on the models, back then, you could've gone either way. But depending on how big of a jump you're coming from to get to a Nexus Matrix is a whole different ball of wax. Then again, going from a 3M control to a 310i would be in the same boat. These are exactly "bolt ons". I doubt Mitsubishi would take part in that either.

Different motors, drive, amps, encoders, ... high speed connections, high speed buss, more power, MAC & relay vs. MR-J2 ...... ..... .....

so (IMHO) its very clear (to me) that Mazak does not want to retrofit or update even their own old machines,

Of course not. They're OEM with 30 (?) new machines coming out this year at IMTS. Why would anybody expect them or any MTB to randomly upgrade something like that? There are machine builders that are tailored to accomodate such things. However, Mazak amongst dozens of others are not. (although they are restoring a V5 but that's more for historical reasons... not a retrofit).
 
I wish I could but, thats not my business plan

If I'm going to upgrade the controller.... I'm going to upgrade the machine....
Unless I'm running some really obscure or one off machine, the machine ain't worth having a new control on it or the logistics. I'd rather put it down on a Nexus machine all together.

I can only say one thing about your position, Mazak loves you and is dying to talk to you! They have designed their entire sales strategy to suit your "throw away" (actually its probably "sell and buy the new and improved") machine ownership strategy. Best of luck to you with thatbut, that looks too risky for me.

If I were a shop running 24/7/353, I'd do the same thing and in a few years after I wore those suckers out, I'd sell them for way more than they were worth, after 25,000 hours of on time in 4 years.

My shop and strategy are the exact opposite of that. Since I am attempting to set up as a prototyping and soft tooling shop, doing my onsi-twosie parts, and some foundry tooling, and short runs, what I need are quick setups and versatility, so retrofitted old machines that are a little slower on; movement, rapids, and Spindle HP will not hurt me at all, and might save me a lot more $$ than I could ever make with new machines anyway. I'll also be able to pick up spare machines for parts on the cheap to keep the machine iron up and running, and I will not have a big "principle and Interest" hanging over my head as I get started into all this.

I'm looking at standardizing on only one brand of machine for all my old machines and so far that brand looks like it will be late 1980's to early 1990's model Mazaks lathes & mills and one controller but that I'm still working on. It probably will be Fanuc.

These will last me about 20 years in my shop, unless I change my business plan and start changing over to run as a production shop, who knows. Then I'll be right beside you guys at the IMTS booths looking for that perfect machine for that big new contract that I just signed to be a JIT delivery partner to all my customers, etc.. and be lean on every part and delivery/purchasse. Maybe in 10 years we'll be bidding against each other for that limited production run of new "self controlled" machines that do everything including boxing and affixing postage, and they phone you when its time to go home and come to work, just to keep up the appearance that we work for a living, thats the new machine I want to buy.
 
Best of luck to you with thatbut, that looks too risky for me.

All in a day's work.... 50 Mazaks and counting with 100 spindles plus going.... Looking for quite a few more to put on the floor and will probably happen before the year is out... (yes, they know me quite well..)
;)

I didn't mean to downplay your game at all. What you're doing works for some people out there. So you're still a "start up"? Retrofitting isn't all that bad but the selection process can get tiresome along with getting all of that done. Mitsubishi can help out and there are plenty of places installing FANUCs.

I do lot's of prototypes, "onesy-twoseys", tooling and short run as well.... right along side of contract parts. Versatility and quick set ups isn't really dictated by the age of the machine as we are quite modular, versatile and quick with new(er) machines.

Bottom line, Mazak as a company won't get you where you're going with retrofits. You'll need to deal with outside shops who can (as you've already spoken with) or look at other options. What about just simply rebuilding as is or looking for something a bit 'newer'? Prices aren't that high for even Fusion machines out there.

Anyway, while I don't agree with your approach, .... I'm not against you doing this or trying to speak badly about it. If I was your neighbor I'd even help you.

Maybe in 10 years we'll be bidding against each other for that limited production run of new "self controlled" machines that do everything including boxing and affixing postage, and they phone you when its time to go home and come to work, just to keep up the appearance that we work for a living, thats the new machine I want to buy.
Man... NOW you're talkin' .... :smoking:

:cheers:
 
Different motors, drive, amps, encoders, ... high speed connections, high speed buss, more power, MAC & relay vs. MR-J2 ...... ..... .....
It's probably a safe bet that all of those items combined cost more than the castings, machining, and sheetmetal on a brand new Nexus 510.:willy_nilly:
 








 
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