Does anyone that reads the forum own or run one of these HMC's? and do you machine any hard metals on it?

We are looking for a small foot print HMC and the Toyoda fh400j seem to fit the bill, but we dont know anyone that runs this particular model of Toyoda Horizontal.

That should work fine for hard stuff, I run FH450's myself and love em. I think the 400 is just a smaller envelope to the 450 is all. Light and fast is the way to go, I think at one time the 400 was was marketed towards the mold and die shops, but don't quote me. I know some people at Toyoda and could ask around if you don't get any response.

Thanks for the reply. I am having a hard time finding many people that have this particular machine. WE have a small shop that is tight for space and this machine just fits!

I have another question. I notice that the Toyoda's (not sure about all but for sure the fh400j) does not come with chilled ball screws. Everything that I read these days seem to say that chilled ball screws are the way to go due to the thermal expansion of the ball screws after extended use @ such high feed rates and rapid speeds. How much of an issue is this? I am having a hard time finding information that I can fully understand (grin) that would explain exactly how much of an affect this will have. Does it mean that after two hours I cannot hold .0005 interpolating a hole diameter?

Any insight to this would be appreciated. I may post this question in to another forum as well since it is not really machine specific, but more of a general question about cooled ball screws and when they are necessary.

My 450's don't have chilled ball screws but we did put scales on them. My older 450lll's and 450ll's didn't have chilled ball screws eigther and it was never an issue holding tolerance. nor did they have scales. I just did a job where I held .0003 tol. on a 6" dia. in 440c that was 54rc. no issues. The chilled ballscrew is hype in my opinion.

The FH400J does not come with chilled ball screws, but it does come standard with a ball screw thermal displacement function. This system takes actual readings at the end of the ballscrew and compensates accordingly to allow for accurate cutting over long periods of time.

I will see what I can do about getting you contact information for 400J users.

Thanks! I appreciate that.

Just got the Toyoda propaganda email yesterday and saw the link to this machine. It's no deeper than the VMC I have now and only 3 feet longer! That'd be a sweet little machine! Good luck with your search.