2014 Fadal 4020B made in Taiwan

2014 Fadal 4020B made in Taiwan

This was the first machines built in Taiwan after Fadal was sold by Giddings and Lewis. The current 2020 machine is the 2nd series and a different machine but with the same Fadal 64 MP control which is an upgrade from the original Fadal control built in United States.

Does anyone have or know anything about this machine if its good or bad. I have a chance to get one at a good price??

Gman4405 said:

2014 Fadal 4020B made in Taiwan

This was the first machines built in Taiwan after Fadal was sold by Giddings and Lewis. The current 2020 machine is the 2nd series and a different machine but with the same Fadal 64 MP control which is an upgrade from the original Fadal control built in United States.

Does anyone have or know anything about this machine if its good or bad. I have a chance to get one at a good price??

Click to expand...

Who can service that machine locally?

It's somewhat ironic, but if you wanted a fadal you'd probably be better of getting an older fadal, that way you can be assured that it can serviced, and parts availibility from multiple vendors would be assured.

triumph406 said:

Who can service that machine locally?

It's somewhat ironic, but if you wanted a fadal you'd probably be better of getting an older fadal, that way you can be assured that it can serviced, and parts availibility from multiple vendors would be assured.

Click to expand...

The Machinery Distributor I am dealing with use to sell these and has a few left. He swears he services them and can get parts that would ever be needed. He states they take the same spindles and carries and installs those as well. The control on the machine is the Fadal 64 MP which is the same control as the machine Fadal is selling in 2020 (which is a different machine today) Have spoke to multiple shop owners that give this dealer a good rateing.

More pics of 2014 Fadal 4020B Tawain Machine

Taiwan is a different animal from the PRC. They have been free-market people for a long time, and it is worth remembering that the original Pacific Rim competition for US machine-tool manufacturing came from Taiwan in the form of drill presses and BP clones. It was effective because their products were pretty good quality and inexpensive. Only a few PRC companies have developed a quality culture equal to Taiwan.

That said, Fadal and Haas began head-to-head (literally with contiguous back yards) and Fadal lost. For what it's worth.

Oldwrench said:

That said, Fadal and Haas began head-to-head (literally with contiguous back yards) and Fadal lost. For what it's worth.

Click to expand...

Fadal started making VMC's before Haas did, the story goes Adrian from Fadal would help the Haas engineers if they ever had questions. Allegedly the co-operation finished when Fadal saw one of their VMC's at Haas disassembled so Haas could see how to make a VMC.

triumph406 said:

......Allegedly the co-operation finished when Fadal saw one of their VMC's at Haas disassembled so Haas could see how to make a VMC.

Click to expand...

Why anyone would choose a Fadal to study machine tool construction is beyond my understanding.

Vancbiker said:

Why anyone would choose a Fadal to study machine tool construction is beyond my understanding.

Click to expand...

Simple machines, easy to service, easy to make, they did very well for quite a few years as did whoever purchased their machines. The beauty of a Fadal is it's simplicity.

triumph406 said:

Simple machines, easy to service, easy to make, they did very well for quite a few years as did whoever purchased their machines. The beauty of a Fadal is it's simplicity.

Click to expand...

The beuaty of a Fadal wasn't that it was the Mostest Bestest Greatest Fastest machine ever made. Its that it was SIMPLE.. And they were the SAME for fricken ever.

Fadal proper, after MAG killed them (like they kill EVERYTHING) has been out of business for at least 15 years..

Yet.. you can still get parts, from MANY sources. You can still get support... From MANY sources.

If it wasn't so late in the day, there is not a single part that I couldn't get for a 27 year old machine,
on my shop floor tomorrow morning. And it wouldn't kill me. 15 year old Haas. Controller card went out,
now I'm 10k for a complete control upgrade. Fadal. $300. On my floor tomorrow morning.

Nothing on a Fadal is perfect. The tool changes will put you to sleep. The accelerations are like
something to do with the walking dead. The Z axis ways could have been 8inches further apart.

Fadal's control... NO options. It was all in there. And it was/is SIMPLE. People that can't figure out a Fadal control have serious mental problems, and probably can't tie their own shoes, and have been found masturbating in public, repeatedly.

Its the Fisher Price of machines.. It's just simple. The Chevy Small Block of machine tools (and I hate Chevy's). They were the same forever, and they were simple and effective. They were even the same across multiple different machines.

you don't need a specific manual for a '96 4020. You just need a easily downloadable manual (and those are free) for a FADAL. No specific year... No specific model. You just need a Fadal manual.. Period.

The simplicity and commonality is just awesome. No need to worry about some corporation trying to get your post pulled on this board because you posted some odd obscure parameter change that you should have had to pay $1200 for. Nope. On a Fadal, its 3 very short pages written in English. Nothing special, nothing magic. To turn on rigid tapping its not the 4th bit of parameter 362, its literally a line that says. Rigid Tapping, 1)yes 2)no.

Simple machines. They aren't the latest they aren't the greatest, and they aren't the best or fastest. And they do break, but they are the cheapest to keep running. And if you maintain them, they are pretty fricken capable, and pretty damn accurate.

I really appreciate their basic simplicity.

Vancbiker said:

Why anyone would choose a Fadal to study machine tool construction is beyond my understanding.

Click to expand...

Both reboot machines using the Fadal name had nothing in common with the original design. Just Taiwan iron with that blue and off white paint scheme. I would run away from that machine. I just checked the webpage from the second reboot group and now they have Freedom Brand machines in all sizes and flavors. WTF.

Bobw said:

The beuaty of a Fadal wasn't that it was the Mostest Bestest Greatest Fastest machine ever made. Its that it was SIMPLE.. And they were the SAME for fricken ever.

Fadal proper, after MAG killed them (like they kill EVERYTHING) has been out of business for at least 15 years..

Yet.. you can still get parts, from MANY sources. You can still get support... From MANY sources.

If it wasn't so late in the day, there is not a single part that I couldn't get for a 27 year old machine,
on my shop floor tomorrow morning. And it wouldn't kill me. 15 year old Haas. Controller card went out,
now I'm 10k for a complete control upgrade. Fadal. $300. On my floor tomorrow morning.

Nothing on a Fadal is perfect. The tool changes will put you to sleep. The accelerations are like
something to do with the walking dead. The Z axis ways could have been 8inches further apart.

Fadal's control... NO options. It was all in there. And it was/is SIMPLE. People that can't figure out a Fadal control have serious mental problems, and probably can't tie their own shoes, and have been found masturbating in public, repeatedly.

Its the Fisher Price of machines.. It's just simple. The Chevy Small Block of machine tools (and I hate Chevy's). They were the same forever, and they were simple and effective. They were even the same across multiple different machines.

you don't need a specific manual for a '96 4020. You just need a easily downloadable manual (and those are free) for a FADAL. No specific year... No specific model. You just need a Fadal manual.. Period.

The simplicity and commonality is just awesome. No need to worry about some corporation trying to get your post pulled on this board because you posted some odd obscure parameter change that you should have had to pay $1200 for. Nope. On a Fadal, its 3 very short pages written in English. Nothing special, nothing magic. To turn on rigid tapping its not the 4th bit of parameter 362, its literally a line that says. Rigid Tapping, 1)yes 2)no.

Simple machines. They aren't the latest they aren't the greatest, and they aren't the best or fastest. And they do break, but they are the cheapest to keep running. And if you maintain them, they are pretty fricken capable, and pretty damn accurate.

I really appreciate their basic simplicity.

Click to expand...

Extreamly well said

2outof3 said:

Both reboot machines using the Fadal name had nothing in common with the original design. Just Taiwan iron with that blue and off white paint scheme. I would run away from that machine. I just checked the webpage from the second reboot group and now they have Freedom Brand machines in all sizes and flavors. WTF.

Click to expand...

My take on the "new" fadal, if anybody cares. They are doing it wrong, they are doing what Mag tried to do.

Trying to make too many different machines. Trying to branch out quickly into lathes and horizontals. And yeah, the guts, they aren't Fadal.

If it was me, and I owned the Fadal name right now. I would partner up with one of the companies that is making the new upgraded 64 bit controls for the old Fadals. I would use the same card cage, power supply, spindle drives, probably even the same spindle. Now all I need is iron. And I would keep it very similar to the old Fadal. A few tweeks, but basically the same as it was. Go a little wider on the ways, add a little more weight where its needed.

And I wouldn't start with giant ambitions of lathes and horizontals and tons of options. A 3016 and a 4020. Because nobody has ever bought a 2216. Then maybe add a VMC15.. XT of course, because again, nobody has ever bought a VMC15 that wasn't an XT.

I'd even stick with the umbrella tool changer. Servo driven, not that horrible slow geneva drive.

The one thing I would change. The sheet metal, the lower part. You can't put a chip conveyor on a fadal, unless it has the hydrosweep sheetmetal. I'd change it so that you could just slide a chip conveyor in if you want one.

NO OPTIONS. 10k 2 speed spindle. Rigid tapping of course.

Just keep it simple. No lathes, no horizontals, no options. And none of that liquid cooled ballscrew crap.

Bobw said:

My take on the "new" fadal, if anybody cares. They are doing it wrong, they are doing what Mag tried to do.

Trying to make too many different machines. Trying to branch out quickly into lathes and horizontals. And yeah, the guts, they aren't Fadal.

If it was me, and I owned the Fadal name right now. I would partner up with one of the companies that is making the new upgraded 64 bit controls for the old Fadals. I would use the same card cage, power supply, spindle drives, probably even the same spindle. Now all I need is iron. And I would keep it very similar to the old Fadal. A few tweeks, but basically the same as it was. Go a little wider on the ways, add a little more weight where its needed.

And I wouldn't start with giant ambitions of lathes and horizontals and tons of options. A 3016 and a 4020. Because nobody has ever bought a 2216. Then maybe add a VMC15.. XT of course, because again, nobody has ever bought a VMC15 that wasn't an XT.

I'd even stick with the umbrella tool changer. Servo driven, not that horrible slow geneva drive.

The one thing I would change. The sheet metal, the lower part. You can't put a chip conveyor on a fadal, unless it has the hydrosweep sheetmetal. I'd change it so that you could just slide a chip conveyor in if you want one.

NO OPTIONS. 10k 2 speed spindle. Rigid tapping of course.

Just keep it simple. No lathes, no horizontals, no options. And none of that liquid cooled ballscrew crap.

Click to expand...

just before the brother sold Fadal they were working on a lathe supposedly.

priced right even with a -5 controller new vmc4020s would sell

Bobw said:

The beuaty of a Fadal wasn't that it was the Mostest Bestest Greatest Fastest machine ever made. Its that it was SIMPLE.. And they were the SAME for fricken ever.

Fadal proper, after MAG killed them (like they kill EVERYTHING) has been out of business for at least 15 years..

Yet.. you can still get parts, from MANY sources. You can still get support... From MANY sources.

If it wasn't so late in the day, there is not a single part that I couldn't get for a 27 year old machine,
on my shop floor tomorrow morning. And it wouldn't kill me. 15 year old Haas. Controller card went out,
now I'm 10k for a complete control upgrade. Fadal. $300. On my floor tomorrow morning.

Nothing on a Fadal is perfect. The tool changes will put you to sleep. The accelerations are like
something to do with the walking dead. The Z axis ways could have been 8inches further apart.

Fadal's control... NO options. It was all in there. And it was/is SIMPLE. People that can't figure out a Fadal control have serious mental problems, and probably can't tie their own shoes, and have been found masturbating in public, repeatedly.

Its the Fisher Price of machines.. It's just simple. The Chevy Small Block of machine tools (and I hate Chevy's). They were the same forever, and they were simple and effective. They were even the same across multiple different machines.

you don't need a specific manual for a '96 4020. You just need a easily downloadable manual (and those are free) for a FADAL. No specific year... No specific model. You just need a Fadal manual.. Period.

The simplicity and commonality is just awesome. No need to worry about some corporation trying to get your post pulled on this board because you posted some odd obscure parameter change that you should have had to pay $1200 for. Nope. On a Fadal, its 3 very short pages written in English. Nothing special, nothing magic. To turn on rigid tapping its not the 4th bit of parameter 362, its literally a line that says. Rigid Tapping, 1)yes 2)no.

Simple machines. They aren't the latest they aren't the greatest, and they aren't the best or fastest. And they do break, but they are the cheapest to keep running. And if you maintain them, they are pretty fricken capable, and pretty damn accurate.

I really appreciate their basic simplicity.

Click to expand...

And along with that- they print money. Ya it's slow, but even at that pace mine paid for itself in about 40hrs of run time.

Sent from my SM-G930R4 using Tapatalk

Cole2534 said:

And along with that- they print money. Ya it's slow, but even at that pace mine paid for itself in about 40hrs of run time.

Sent from my SM-G930R4 using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

This is from years ago. And you can see the running totals on the left. I used to keep
track of how long they took to pay for themselves. That one was more than 40 hours, but
it was quick.

Bobw said:

My take on the "new" fadal, if anybody cares. They are doing it wrong, they are doing what Mag tried to do.

Trying to make too many different machines. Trying to branch out quickly into lathes and horizontals. And yeah, the guts, they aren't Fadal.

If it was me, and I owned the Fadal name right now. I would partner up with one of the companies that is making the new upgraded 64 bit controls for the old Fadals. I would use the same card cage, power supply, spindle drives, probably even the same spindle. Now all I need is iron. And I would keep it very similar to the old Fadal. A few tweeks, but basically the same as it was. Go a little wider on the ways, add a little more weight where its needed.

And I wouldn't start with giant ambitions of lathes and horizontals and tons of options. A 3016 and a 4020. Because nobody has ever bought a 2216. Then maybe add a VMC15.. XT of course, because again, nobody has ever bought a VMC15 that wasn't an XT.

I'd even stick with the umbrella tool changer. Servo driven, not that horrible slow geneva drive.

The one thing I would change. The sheet metal, the lower part. You can't put a chip conveyor on a fadal, unless it has the hydrosweep sheetmetal. I'd change it so that you could just slide a chip conveyor in if you want one.

NO OPTIONS. 10k 2 speed spindle. Rigid tapping of course.

Just keep it simple. No lathes, no horizontals, no options. And none of that liquid cooled ballscrew crap.

Click to expand...

But why? I was one of the last Acroloc folks. Times change and technology changes.

Why not build the new Chevy Nova but just like the old one. Slow, heavy and handles like shit but with a decent engine? Because all the other improvements in modern cars are so much better for the consumer.

The machine this thread is about appears to be built much, much better than a US Fadal.

I think Fadal ran it's coarse.



I owned a real big Marvel power hacksaw once. Built in 1965. Like, you know, 30 years after bandsaws should have killed any idea that power hacksaws were a good idea. Thought that thing was cool shit. Until I got busy.

Kinda how a Fadal is. It works. You can fix it with a hammer and replace the wheelbarrow wheel bearings they use for screw thrust bearings every month.

Not for me.

A Japanese CNC from the 70's is more refined than a Fadal from the early 2000's. I don't see how that's a positive for Fadal. The Jap machine probably had a lower cost of ownership and higher up time in 40 years than the Fadal did in 20. The Jap machine was most certainly more productive.

I've seen a few Fadals in production environments. They were aborted and moved out of the way. "Well that didn't work". Last Fadal I owned was bought new to go in a gear manufacturing cell. All it had to do was engrave part numbers on bronze gears. It was ALWAYS the point of failure in that cell. It would go down atleast monthly and take a few days to fix. Maintenance guys hated working on it because it was so cheesy.

2outof3 said:

But why? I was one of the last Acroloc folks. Times change and technology changes.

Click to expand...

Because it works. Except for being faster, what would you change on a Fadal?

Chip handling obviously, or the ability to EASILY add a conveyor.

A little faster accelerations would be nice, newer motors and faster control should
fix that. Maybe a little more on the rapids, but its really the accelerations that
make it seem so slow.

The tool changer. Back in the day at some point they did have a servo turret option.
A swing arm would be nice I guess, but its more complicated and more expensive, and I
know it was an option at some point, but I'm pretty sure it was right at the end. And
again.. Keep it simple.

Control wise, super easy to use, really friendly, I don't think the interface needs to change
at all. Some color would be nice, and that's already been taken care of with the new 64
bit controls. Some better graphics would be cool on a backplot, but I think that's been
taken care of too.

A fadal is what a Fadal is. Its a simple, no frills, easy to fix and maintain job shop machine.

Its not trying to turn a Nova into a Corvette, its trying to turn a Nova into a Cavalier, or
a Ford Focus.

I'd keep the same two speed head because its really simple, and it works really well.

I'd also want to keep the commonality with the older machines because there is already
a fairly large network of people that supply parts and support, and if I owned 'Fadal',
I'd want to keep that network in place. That's one of the reasons I like Fadals, I don't
have to go TO FADAL to get parts and support. I think that is a potential HUGE selling point.

"This machine will be supported for at least 30 years, and you don't have to buy parts from me"..

HUGE selling point for a small shop.


Back to the carousel tool changer. Years ago I worked in a shop with a Fadal and
a Mazak FJV20 (22x16 machine), 1100ipm rapids, and a carousel tool changer. The
Fadal was an AC machine, so it had 900ipm rapids.

Pulled a job off the Fadal because I needed the travels for another job, and put it
on the mazak. Same tools, same feeds, same speeds, same tool paths. I don't remember
if it was a 4 or a 6 tool job. I don't recall the exact #'s down to the second, but
we went from a 6minute 40second run time to just over 3 minutes.

The time savings was all in accelerations, quicker orientation of the spindle, and the
Mazak carousel would spin from T1 to T10 in about a 1/2 second. it was also 21 tools.


I'm not arguing, just discussing, and thinking out loud. If you woke up this
morning and you all of a sudden owned 'Fadal'... What would you do?

and take a few days to fix. Maintenance guys hated working on it because it was so cheesy.

Click to expand...

If it took them a couple of days to fix, then you really needed better maintenance guys.

And if they set the thrust bearings properly, they last and last and last, I haven't done a
set in maybe 8 years. I've also done them wrong, and had them blow out in a month or two.

I do agree, having to shim non-matched bearings is kind of cheezy. And I looked and looked
and looked, and could not find a matched set with the same dimensions.

BobW, I enjoy your Fadal posts and I totally respect your perspective.

Honestly, my only real gripe with Fadals is how inflated the prices are for them. IMO, no Fadal should be more than $5k. I just can't imagine spending $15k-$20k CASH on one of these things today for what they return.