Hurco VMX42 Vintage 2004

I am looking at a used 2004 HURCO VMX42 ?? Anyone have experience with this machine? Looks to be a beefier,newer stronge,faster machine than the Fadals and I just discovered they have service techs in my area. 25HP motor vs. 15 for the Fadal. Looks like it has coolant thru the spindle and guessing the spinde diameter looks like apr. a beefy 9" O.D. What about the Hurco Control?? Any input and comments appreciated. Thank you!

Gman4405 said:

I am looking at a used 2004 HURCO VMX42 ?? Anyone have experience with this machine? Looks to be a beefier,newer stronge,faster machine than the Fadals and I just discovered they have service techs in my area. 25HP motor vs. 15 for the Fadal. Looks like it has coolant thru the spindle and guessing the spinde diameter looks like apr. a beefy 9" O.D. What about the Hurco Control?? Any input and comments appreciated. Thank you!

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From what I recall when I was looking at Hurcos, they use Siemens drives.
The older stuff is VERY expensive, and few will try to repair if there is a problem.

That said, I started with an old KMP5, and was able to get machine support from Hurco (5 years ago, machine was 1984 or something like that).

Make sure the control has the ISO option, or youre stuck using the control to program, which is ok for quick 2d stuff.

Thank you!

macds said:

From what I recall when I was looking at Hurcos, they use Siemens drives.
The older stuff is VERY expensive, and few will try to repair if there is a problem.

That said, I started with an old KMP5, and was able to get machine support from Hurco (5 years ago, machine was 1984 or something like that).

Make sure the control has the ISO option, or youre stuck using the control to program, which is ok for quick 2d stuff.

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Thanks for mthat great info. So your saying without this ISO option you cannot load a program from a Cad sytem like Mastercam or any other offline Cam prgramming system ?

macds said:

From what I recall when I was looking at Hurcos, they use Siemens drives.
The older stuff is VERY expensive, and few will try to repair if there is a problem.

That said, I started with an old KMP5, and was able to get machine support from Hurco (5 years ago, machine was 1984 or something like that).

Make sure the control has the ISO option, or youre stuck using the control to program, which is ok for quick 2d stuff.

Click to expand...

The machine im looking at is a 2004 Hurco VMX42

macds said:

From what I recall when I was looking at Hurcos, they use Siemens drives.
The older stuff is VERY expensive, and few will try to repair if there is a problem......

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Some Hurco machines use Yaskawa drives which IMO, would be a much better option than Siemens. I would never buy an older machine with Siemens or Heidenain. They don't have a good reputation for supporting their old hardware.

Yup, thats what I was tryiing to say. The older Siemens drive can be a nightmare if you have problems.

OP, i dont know what that machine would be equipped with. You would have to inspect.
If you can get a picture of the guts of the control cabinet, we can likely identify whats in there.

That vintage of Hurco will outperform a Fadal, but you have to consider repair costs as well.
Hurco support has been good for me in the past, but I have no recent personal experience.

Some people love the control, a lot hate it. Depends on the kind of work you do, and your background.
Look up Ultimax 3 or Winmax(Id imagine thats what that machine runs on).

macds said:

Yup, thats what I was tryiing to say. The older Siemens drive can be a nightmare if you have problems.

OP, i dont know what that machine would be equipped with. You would have to inspect.
If you can get a picture of the guts of the control cabinet, we can likely identify whats in there.

That vintage of Hurco will outperform a Fadal, but you have to consider repair costs as well.
Hurco support has been good for me in the past, but I have no recent personal experience.

Some people love the control, a lot hate it. Depends on the kind of work you do, and your background.
Look up Ultimax 3 or Winmax(Id imagine thats what that machine runs on).

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Can I download a Cam file from a cam software at my PC into the Hurco Controller without issue?

I would think so, but ISO code was an option on quite a few machines 20 years ago.
You would have to check the option list.
Hurco is nice, because the option list is viewable on the control.

Page 73 of this document shows how to change between "NC dialect" on a 2000-2002 ultimax, so I would say you SHOULD be ok with a 2004.
https://stonemachinery.com/pdfs/Get-Started-with-Ultimax4.pdf

Best would be to get the serial number from the machine, and call your local Hurco support to see what options the machine has.

I have newer and older Hurcos than that, but no direct experience with a 2004 vintage, however here's what I know about it. I think the first Winmax controls started to appear in 2005, so your machine is likely an Ultimax 4, which I have never used.

However, to the best of my knowledge, every Hurco since the original Ultimax has been able to run g code as standard. The "NC dialect" mentioned by macds means either the standard built in "BNC" ("Basic NC") format, or the optional "ISNC" ("Industry Standard NC") format. ISNC is pretty much interchangeable with Fanuc, and has things like Macro B support. BNC is a little different, but perfectly capable of running code from CAM if you have a suitable post.

Hurco have used drives and motors from Fanuc, Siemens and Yaskawa, Yaskawa are the most common and you probably have those, but no guarantees - again I have no first hand experience with that particular vintage of Hurco. I have a 2011 hurco that has yaskawa axis drives and a siemens spindle drive, but it's one of their less common machines.

As far as the actual machine goes, the VMX series is a pretty robust and heavy, pretty standard fare Taiwanese frame similar to what you would get from any other Taiwanese or Korean builder in that weight class.

I have about 10 years experience with that same vintage VMX30. Super solid machine for the way these monkeys have treated her. crash after crash and still going. The conversational is quite nice for most of your basic parts. The NC side of things runs fine with Gcode, though we are limited to Floppy disks so one has to get creative on filtering options. Other than that nothing I would complain about.

Thanks for your input!

BSCustoms said:

I have about 10 years experience with that same vintage VMX30. Super solid machine for the way these monkeys have treated her. crash after crash and still going. The conversational is quite nice for most of your basic parts. The NC side of things runs fine with Gcode, though we are limited to Floppy disks so one has to get creative on filtering options. Other than that nothing I would complain about.

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Thanks for your input!