Have, or run, The New Fadal Machines?

Have any of you ran or seen the new Fadals?

We are currently shopping machine for a new fadal/haas level machine
and I thought I would see if anyone here has had any contact with the
new line. Likes, dislikes, whatever, just looking for some feedback.

Thanks,

Chobyn

Why would anyone buy a Fadal in todays market? Cutting technologies have moved way beyond the capabilities of the reliable old Fadal control. Fadal built it's reputation on cheap spindles well supported. The new machines are Taiwanese iron with an outdated control and little to no local or national support. You are competing against other vendors who are cutting at 600ipm and have tool changers that change tools in under 2 seconds from one cut to another. Your machine is your vehicle to make money. Buy the machine that makes you the most money day in and day out.

Im with 2outof3 on this. You have a company with a reputation for leaving people out to dry, Out dated system, imported iron, and IF they cane make a slight comeback it will take years and the support is going to be sub standard at best. If you are in that type of machine line market you will have a tough time beating Haas. It is a decent machine that you can make money with and the support is second to none. There are better machines (Mori, okuma, Mazak, ect) but with a heavier price tag.

2outof3 said:

Why would anyone buy a Fadal in todays market? Cutting technologies have moved way beyond the capabilities of the reliable old Fadal control. Fadal built it's reputation on cheap spindles well supported. The new machines are Taiwanese iron with an outdated control and little to no local or national support. You are competing against other vendors who are cutting at 600ipm and have tool changers that change tools in under 2 seconds from one cut to another. Your machine is your vehicle to make money. Buy the machine that makes you the most money day in and day out.

Click to expand...

Well that might be true if they were using the OLD fadal control but they are not. Taiwanese Iron seems to be good for almost every machine builder. The old Fadals were a lot like the Kitamuras of those years. I would say they were built like an American version of a Kitamura. The Kittys closely resembled the Fadal in many many ways.

Personally...historically I think its a boxed way machine that had strong servos. If they were to tension the ballscrew, make the tool changer faster, the control faster, increase rapids and feeds and get rid of those small diameter Bellville washers they would have a world class machine. But I would not buy one in todays climate. Not because they are probably not a good machine but because a 8030 wont reach 80 inches its like 78.9" which leads me to believe they are made with metric components like the Mazaks are in that range and for the fact that in 2002 an 8030 was 130,000.00 IIRC. For that kind of money in 2015 you should adjust a little for inflation so your looking at a $150-160,000.00 80" machine. I would buy a brand new fucking Haas for that money and a used Haas. Nobody gives a shit about world class machines anymore. Unless your competing for the last 1/2 a cent and your calculating a loss from your extra second of tool change you aren't buying that kind of machine anyway. So any machine in the 40"+ travel range wont have the speed of a smaller machine but in a boxed way form the real world market doesn't care to spend on anything but linear way machines. The videos they made of a ball end mill running at what looks like 50ipm saying feeds to 400ipm in the video is piss poor advertising. They should clean it up, make it work or get the hell out.

Will they find a market? You bet they will there are tons of mfgs that don't want to pussy foot around with smaller cuts, vibrations caused by Haas machines. There are those that have owned the same Fadals for 25+ years and found them a tremendous value. They are using a lot of the same components as the older machines. I would wait to see where pricing comes in. If they were made to sell at a Haas price they may be a value.

This thread is (I think) the latest on the resurrection of Fadal.

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/cnc-machining/fadal-back-276832/


Rex

Saw some posts on the facebook machinist page a few months ago by the guys who got what looked like serial number 1 and they were having issues getting it up and running.... Seemed like they weren't super excited about it.

It should be interesting to see where this forum goes...if anywhere...."Imported iron" ? I assume you are referring to this new machine under the FADAL name? Because, I know from personal knowledge, the old Fadals castings all came from Berkeley, California.



BTW-What size machine are you looking for?

How much is their 40x20 vmc going for? Not that I'm getting one, but I want to know how many lemmings will pay 100k for one instead of a better,faster, more accurate machine for about the same price.

Here in Ca the "New Fadals" are kind of like Bigfoot, we have heard a lot about them but never seen one in the wild,

Here's what I know (or don't know)...

4020 around 80k,

Yaskawa axis motor(s)

Taiwan Casting

Assembled in USA ?

Rapids, 787 ipm, 900 ipm or 1400 ipm, depends on who you ask or what day of the week it is.

Side mount tool changer, It's either realy fast or really slow

Colors are Red, White and Blue, pretty sure about this one !

New control based on the old control, which is either good or bad

To add to the above by Omega...this may or not, be the new control:

David de Caussin | NXGEN CNC Control

Not the new control

IAMATT said:

Not the new control

Click to expand...

To bad.....

We are looking for a 40x20 travel machine

This is what I have been told...

Base machine (4020) is 82k.
taiwan castings (have heard this is more common than people want to hear...)

yasakawa servos
1400ipm rapids in x/y, I think it was 1080(?)ipm in z
250mb internal mem standard.
24tool sidemount standard
high speed machining standard.
10k spindle standard

Lots of the 'extras' that haas offers are standard.
Base price machine is higher, but less $$ in add-ons that you
are really going to want anyway.

I went to the haas site and priced a more or less comparable vf3
and came back at about 90k, so seems like they are priced to re-enter
the market.

What I was hoping for was that someone had run one, or has seen one run
that could give some feedback on it. 20 years ago they were more or less
apples to apples, IMO (feel free to argue it if you disagree). They are
claiming this new line is comparable to the current haas, so I am asking....

Personally, I would love to be looking at something a bit more...of a machine,
but the parameters I was given were a fadal/haas level machine. This is not really
solely my decision to make or not make, but I have asked to give input on it.

Mtdew, What other '100k-ish' machines should we be looking at besides Haas?
We are already looking at them as well. I would love to be looking at Mazak,
Mori, Okuma, etc, but those are not currently in the cards.

Thanks for the feedback guys!

I'm kinda dumb, so can someone explain this like I'm 5?

- Fadal Is Back was touted a while ago, because de Caussin started showing off a little mill that was somewhere between a Tormach and a Haas mini mill. It was small, had a funny, custom R8 tapered spindle thingy, and very slow tool change dingus. It had a website, facebook page, and a dude making camera accessories had one in production that he was happy with. And the whole thing disappeared. Website died, Facebook page went stale, nothing was ever heard of or seen again.

- Fadal is Back was than touted AGAIN, as someone had bought the brand and was starting to get castings made and screwing new Fadal machines together with them. de Caussin was somehow involved, or not, nobody knows. They had a website, and hit some marketing materials, but again - haven't really been seen or herd of since.

- de Caussin now has a new CNC control company? It has a cheesy, made in an afternoon website, and some marketing stuff, and pictures of a facility. But you can't buy a machine with this control, and who knows what the hell else is up.

Anyone else thinking that there is a lot of vaporware going on with this de Caussin dude?

No offence to the guy, he obviously made it once before,but can he hold his breath long enough to pull it off?
From what you see on youtube, it seems like he is the main (read only?) peanut in the packet. With proprietary spindle tapers and their own control I would be shit scared of jumping into the pond to find it dry in a year or two.
I only saw a couple of the video's and they were all of machines looking like prototypes with super slow rapids and tool changes. If the problem of runout in the tapped pullstud role is his main motivation for his taper design, why did it not bother any of the other MTB's out there that run standard holders? Seems like he just wants to hog the tooling sales for himself as well. He is not selling under the Fadal name is he? Just leveraging the fact that he used to be Fadal?
Like I said before, no intention to bring him down, I just have a nervous feeling about this

Chobyn said:

Mtdew, What other '100k-ish' machines should we be looking at besides Haas?
We are already looking at them as well. I would love to be looking at Mazak,
Mori, Okuma, etc, but those are not currently in the cards.

Thanks for the feedback guys!

Click to expand...

Have a look at Hyundai-Kia.
We have 4 Okumas and one Hyundai-Kia.
I think it's Hyundai-Wia now though. We have the VX400, it's a 40x20 (actually the travel is 31.5 x 18.125) with a Fanuc control, 12k spindle, and it's been solid with no issues for the last 9 years. Removable side panels for doing stuff that needs to stick out of the machine also. We bought it new for about $75k but like I said that was 9 years ago.

Chobyn said:

Personally, I would love to be looking at something a bit more...of a machine,
but the parameters I was given were a fadal/haas level machine. This is not really
solely my decision to make or not make, but I have asked to give input on it.

Mtdew, What other '100k-ish' machines should we be looking at besides Haas?
We are already looking at them as well. I would love to be looking at Mazak,
Mori, Okuma, etc, but those are not currently in the cards.

Thanks for the feedback guys!

Click to expand...

Brother Speedio S1000X1. New technology in the $100k range for the High Torque model with CTS prep.

Chobyn said:

Mtdew, What other '100k-ish' machines should we be looking at besides Haas?
We are already looking at them as well. I would love to be looking at Mazak,
Mori, Okuma, etc, but those are not currently in the cards.

Thanks for the feedback guys!

Click to expand...

Doosan DNM500, couldn't be happier with the two new Doosans I bought last year.

gkoenig said:

I'm kinda dumb, so can someone explain this like I'm 5?

- Fadal Is Back was touted a while ago, because de Caussin started showing off a little mill that was somewhere between a Tormach and a Haas mini mill. It was small, had a funny, custom R8 tapered spindle thingy, and very slow tool change dingus. It had a website, facebook page, and a dude making camera accessories had one in production that he was happy with. And the whole thing disappeared. Website died, Facebook page went stale, nothing was ever heard of or seen again.

- Fadal is Back was than touted AGAIN, as someone had bought the brand and was starting to get castings made and screwing new Fadal machines together with them. de Caussin was somehow involved, or not, nobody knows. They had a website, and hit some marketing materials, but again - haven't really been seen or herd of since.

- de Caussin now has a new CNC control company? It has a cheesy, made in an afternoon website, and some marketing stuff, and pictures of a facility. But you can't buy a machine with this control, and who knows what the hell else is up.

Anyone else thinking that there is a lot of vaporware going on with this de Caussin dude?

Click to expand...

Dave still posts stuff on youtube regarding his machines, and he now has two separate mill models, a lathe, etc.. last mentioned something about having them produced in China. I don't think anything will ever really come of it..

I think the retrofit control is actually being done by his son and/or other relatives.. there's a couple family members who all are still tied to FADAL machines in some way or another (running parts websites, CALMotion, etc..)

New machines are being produced by some company in the midwest.. doubtful much will come of that, either.

While the old reliable FADALs have proven themselves over the years, this new "FADAL" has not.
So far, as inferred by others here on PM, I think they seem to be testing the interest we as shop owners would have in them.

I for one would not want to be someone's beta tester.