Are new machines today meaningfully better than older machines?

I know that during the 80's and 90's new machine builds were exciting because of significantly improved machine performance. Speed, speed, speed. Mills got fast and powerful and (coupled with upgraded carbide and coatings) it was thrilling to watch processes that were slow and crude become replaced with increasingly higher and higher material removal rates and better surface finishes and accuracy.

What I'm wondering here is, did that trend continue? Like some manufacturing form of Moore's law? Or did it peak and taper off?

Most of our machines here are Mori's from the 2000's (pre-DMG) which, with 14,000 RPM 30 HP spindles and ~2,000 IPM rapids seemed insanely fast and powerful compared with the tools I'd had from the 90's, but I've never used or even watched any of the newer machines that have come out in the following 15 years. I guess I'm getting "behind the times" and I'm wondering what am I missing out on? Are the newer toys meaningfully better? Do you use a "current" machine in your work and how does it differ from machines built 10-20 years ago?

I think the 90's saw the most performance advances, but it was done with brute force- Large motors and very high electrical loads. The early 2000's saw big advances in increasing the efficiency, like still making 25HP, but doing it with less amps and getting the spindle to speed faster. One thing I see alot on 90's machines is real fast toolchangers that are slap wore out. Like they literally exceeded the limits of how fast you can change tools and have the mechanicals hold together/remain serviceable indefinitely.

I think the 2000-2010 range was a bit of a golden era where the good machines still had a lot of that legacy "extra iron" all over so they can take a cut with conventional toolpaths, but the machines use less juice to do the same work. These machines seem to hold up well mechanically and electrically. They don't draw 200 amps to get the spindle after it.

I don't have anything newer than 2008. The higher end machines I like are still too expensive for my wallet in that age range, but I hear a lot of chatter about this era of machine tools being cheapened up. They may claim faster this or that, but mostly they're figuring out ways to trim weight and eliminate user serviceability.

I see a lot of 2000-2010 machines in production shops along side brand new machines and the new ones aren't able to the parts any faster or better.

I think in the 2010+ realm Haas has tried very hard to wriggle itself into the higher end market and lots of Mori/Okuma/Makino shops have taken Haas up on their multi-machine discount package deals to get 2 or 3 spindles on the floor for the price of one of the good ones. Some of these situations are disasters, some work just fine.

I think the future of machine tools focus is going to be eliminating the operator.

I don't want to sound like I'm getting old .....

But in my opinion after the advance of high speed rapids, and the ability to do high speed machining, the only advancement has been cost cutting and trying to be 'cost competitive'.

Now I'm a lathe guy, but I think some of it applies to milling machines as well.

First hand lathe example. 2005 Miyano Lathe: Made in Japan, Kitagawa chuck cylinders. 2013 Miyano lathe: Made in the Philippines, Kitagawa chuck cylinders. 2021 Miyano lathe: Made in the Philippines, Chinese knockoff chuck cylinders.

NTM said:

I know that during the 80's and 90's new machine builds were exciting because of significantly improved machine performance. Speed, speed, speed. Mills got fast and powerful and (coupled with upgraded carbide and coatings) it was thrilling to watch processes that were slow and crude become replaced with increasingly higher and higher material removal rates and better surface finishes and accuracy.

What I'm wondering here is, did that trend continue? Like some manufacturing form of Moore's law? Or did it peak and taper off?

Most of our machines here are Mori's from the 2000's (pre-DMG) which, with 14,000 RPM 30 HP spindles and ~2,000 IPM rapids seemed insanely fast and powerful compared with the tools I'd had from the 90's, but I've never used or even watched any of the newer machines that have come out in the following 15 years. I guess I'm getting "behind the times" and I'm wondering what am I missing out on? Are the newer toys meaningfully better? Do you use a "current" machine in your work and how does it differ from machines built 10-20 years ago?

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I've already used up my year's supply of words;

One word ---> "Bandwidth";

From the mechatronic and control side bandwidth and processing speed has increased considerably + (where appropriate ) encoder resolution and lower signal noise yielding both speed and accuracy. [In some cases higher accuracy and speed on multiple axes simultaneously controlled.]. Admittedly "Jerk control" and nano-smoothing and positioning can only tame the laws of inertia so much when tied to "iron" flying around variously. The base iron or Epoxy granite still needs to be good and of a sound build, fit, alignment and design.

No more words ... @cameraman

TeachMePlease said:

Eiffelturmbearbeitung - YouTube

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That’s sex on a stick.

I think advances in CAM have been the biggest thing since 2000. Better tool paths and faster programming improving throughput and finish.

I've been to a place making some pretty nice linear motor machining centers. Not goofy junk like DMG, double-column verticals like a Hillyer, except linear motors. They are neat to watch, fast as heck, and no damn ballscrews !

I'd be surprised if this didn't take off.

garyhlucas said:

I think advances in CAM have been the biggest thing since 2000. Better tool paths and faster programming improving throughput and finish.

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I'd second this. We have MUCH more powerful computers that are able to do very complex 3D modelling that were just not possible 20 years ago.

In addition, many advances in cutting technology and cost effective availability of various coatings, etc...

And, CNC machines are much faster now than in the past, due to improved engineering and especially improved control systems.

drcoelho said:

I'd second this. We have MUCH more powerful computers that are able to do very complex 3D modelling that were just not possible 20 years ago.

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Oh bullshit. CAM programs started at the top and worked their way down. NCL is still the hot ticket if you really want to control a machine in five axes or more.

What's happened is that the good stuff has worked its way down. CADCAM was just as powerful decades ago, it just took more brains to run.

EmanuelGoldstein said:

What's happened is that the good stuff has worked its way down. CADCAM was just as powerful decades ago, it just took more brains to run.

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You might modify @drcoelho's point that it wasn't possible in a small shop 20 years ago but it was certainly possible if you were Lockheed. But the fact that these advanced CAD and CAM capabilities were able to work themselves down to the owner operator shop is precisely Clayton Christensen's original definition of a disruptive technology, so it's actually a huge deal.

One thing this industry somewhat seems to take for granted that's actually super valuable is that g-code is so generic so you can use modern CAM to drive 90's machines. Every other sector that I've been involved in, notably scientific instruments, has suffered from too many proprietary control schemes which would end up rendering perfectly good hardware unusable when the computers got too old, or worse, when merely the interface cards got too old (I'm looking at you SCSI). The g-code standard has been awesome in enable older gear to trickle down to smaller operators.

I still don't buy it. Even in Aerospace or Automotive, put a modern CNC machine with modern CAD/CAM against a 20 year old machine with old computer and old CAD/CAM....no contest, productivity much higher today. And yes, all the advanced technologies in CAD/CAM have become accessible to small shops, something that absolutely was not available 20+ years ago. Also, the complexity of parts being manufactureed has gone up as well. It would not have been practical say 30 years ago to build Apple iPhones with the CAD/CAM and CNC machines available at that time in the volumes we see today at the price points we see today...IMHO.

Also, we have robotics in play as well, making 24x7 lights out operation possible, don't believe that was available back then....it's all about production volumes, and price per unit, and increase parts complexity.

Now, if you have an old machine, and lots of time, and you don't care about your per part cost, OK sure, you can make it with older machine.....but that just reinforces my point, new machines have improved.

drcoelho said:

I still don't buy it. Even in Aerospace or Automotive, put a modern CNC machine with modern CAD/CAM against a 20 year old machine with old computer and old CAD/CAM....no contest, productivity much higher today.

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First, if you look around here a little you will find posts remarking on the fact that twenty year old machines are just as good if not better than what they are selling today. What they've done in the past twenty years, according to some is cheapified the product.

This isn't my claim, although I find it credible - you can only spin a ballscrew so fast. That's why I think linear motors are the next step - and that's what the OP was asking about.

Besides that, there's more than just milling in the world. A 1980 Giddings & Lewis or American Tool lathe will rip the brandiest newiest Haas a new asshole, eat the remaining pieces for breakfast then spit out the bones. Some things have gone backwards.

About CADCAM, what you said was

I'd second this. We have MUCH more powerful computers that are able to do very complex 3D modelling that were just not possible 20 years ago.

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Have you ever used IceM ? Alias Auto Studio ? I-DEAS ? Wildfire ? Tebis ? Let's see an example of some "complex 3D modelling" that can't be done in those programs. All of them twenty or older.

If anything, the situation with cadcam is worse now than it was twenty years ago. Autodicks now owns most of them and their direction is to the graveyard.

And yes, all the advanced technologies in CAD/CAM have become accessible to small shops, something that absolutely was not available 20+ years ago.

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Sorry, but it appears to me that prices are now higher than they were 20 years ago and choices more limited and worst of all, you're stuck running them on Windows.

Also, the complexity of parts being manufactureed has gone up as well. It would not have been practical say 30 years ago to build Apple iPhones

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You've got to be shitting me .... you talk complex than pull an iPhone out as an example ? You could draw that pos in Bobcad 14 on DOS. Get serious. Try using a real CAD program before you say this stuff, it just makes you look silly.

with the CAD/CAM and CNC machines available at that time in the volumes we see today at the price points we see today...

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The price point for the iPhone is because it's made in Wuxi by Foxconn, a Taiwanese slave driver company. Has nothing to do with advances in machining and even less with cadcam. Not a good example.

Also, we have robotics in play as well, making 24x7 lights out operation possible, don't believe that was available back then....

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In 1993 I helped install two KT 200's that were auctioned out of McDonnell-Douglas in, I think, Kansas. 1982 machines. They were part of a DNC. 120 tool magazines, redundant tools, octal tool readers, tool life monitoring, process reporting, flexible pallet assignments, flexible scheduling and more, all controlled by a VAX and yup, 24/7 lights-out for sure.

I saw Hardinge with automated loading in ... 1980 Westec ? Liebherr had autoloading that I know of in 1972, I had an L300 with it. Pain in the rear to strip that crap off. Clevelands had autoloading in the fifties ? Sixties for sure. And automated inspection as well. Too bad ITW went tits-up, they had a lot of good stuff about that in their catalogs. Robots and other methods of automation have been around for decades, at least fifty years. Ask Carbide Bob.

You have no idea what was done in the past.

Now, if you have an old machine, and lots of time, and you don't care about your per part cost, OK sure, you can make it with older machine.....but that just reinforces my point, new machines have improved.

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Sorry, but you are full of poop. New machines are marginally better than 1980 machines, maybe (they use a different philosophy, hard to say it's better or not but it is cheaper for the machine builder and purchaser, so maybe overall better) but the main thing that really differentiates a 1980 machine from one in 2020 is the reliability of electronics. Put new electronics on a KT200 and it'd still kick ass. It's just evolution, the gradual improvement of existing ideas, no big leaps.

Stuff is better but there hasn't been anything really revolutionary since 1975, when they first put a computer into the control.

(I'm thinking linear motors could be a big leap because they change the whole "how to move the axes" equation, but .... they aren't common yet )

EmanuelGoldstein said:

First, if you look around here a little you will find posts remarking on the fact that twenty year old machines are just as good if not better than what they are selling today. What they've done in the past twenty years, according to some is cheapified the product.

This isn't my claim, although I find it credible - you can only spin a ballscrew so fast. That's why I think linear motors are the next step - and that's what the OP was asking about.

Besides that, there's more than just milling in the world. A 1980 Giddings & Lewis or American Tool lathe will rip the brandiest newiest Haas a new asshole, eat the remaining pieces for breakfast then spit out the bones. Some things have gone backwards.

About CADCAM, what you said was



Have you ever used IceM ? Alias Auto Studio ? I-DEAS ? Wildfire ? Tebis ? Let's see an example of some "complex 3D modelling" that can't be done in those programs. All of them twenty or older.

If anything, the situation with cadcam is worse now than it was twenty years ago. Autodicks now owns most of them and their direction is to the graveyard.


Sorry, but it appears to me that prices are now higher than they were 20 years ago and choices more limited and worst of all, you're stuck running them on Windows.


You've got to be shitting me .... you talk complex than pull an iPhone out as an example ? You could draw that pos in Bobcad 14 on DOS. Get serious. Try using a real CAD program before you say this stuff, it just makes you look silly.


The price point for the iPhone is because it's made in Wuxi by Foxconn, a Taiwanese slave driver company. Has nothing to do with advances in machining and even less with cadcam. Not a good example.


In 1993 I helped install two KT 200's that were auctioned out of McDonnell-Douglas in, I think, Kansas. 1982 machines. They were part of a DNC. 120 tool magazines, redundant tools, octal tool readers, tool life monitoring, process reporting, flexible pallet assignments, flexible scheduling and more, all controlled by a VAX and yup, 24/7 lights-out for sure.

I saw Hardinge with automated loading in ... 1980 Westec ? Liebherr had autoloading that I know of in 1972, I had an L300 with it. Pain in the rear to strip that crap off. Clevelands had autoloading in the fifties ? Sixties for sure. And automated inspection as well. Too bad ITW went tits-up, they had a lot of good stuff about that in their catalogs. Robots and other methods of automation have been around for decades, at least fifty years. Ask Carbide Bob.

You have no idea what was done in the past.


Sorry, but you are full of poop. New machines are marginally better than 1980 machines, maybe (they use a different philosophy, hard to say it's better or not but it is cheaper for the machine builder and purchaser, so maybe overall better) but the main thing that really differentiates a 1980 machine from one in 2020 is the reliability of electronics. Put new electronics on a KT200 and it'd still kick ass. It's just evolution, the gradual improvement of existing ideas, no big leaps.

Stuff is better but there hasn't been anything really revolutionary since 1975, when they first put a computer into the control.

(I'm thinking linear motors could be a big leap because they change the whole "how to move the axes" equation, but .... they aren't common yet )

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100% agree with Emanuel regarding all topics above.
And, as already mentioned in one of my previous posts, not much, if in all, changed in numerically controlled machine tools for at least 50 years. Our technology is still waiting for its own Steve Jobs. Hopefully it will take less than waiting for Messiah to come.

Stefan

EG
I have been thinking aboot linear generators, cant remember what got me started, some talk or type of turning vibration into power, so I hear you on the motors.
peace mon
Gw

NTM said:

I know that during the 80's and 90's new machine builds were exciting because of significantly improved machine performance. Speed, speed, speed. Mills got fast and powerful and (coupled with upgraded carbide and coatings) it was thrilling to watch processes that were slow and crude become replaced with increasingly higher and higher material removal rates and better surface finishes and accuracy.

What I'm wondering here is, did that trend continue? Like some manufacturing form of Moore's law? Or did it peak and taper off?

Most of our machines here are Mori's from the 2000's (pre-DMG) which, with 14,000 RPM 30 HP spindles and ~2,000 IPM rapids seemed insanely fast and powerful compared with the tools I'd had from the 90's, but I've never used or even watched any of the newer machines that have come out in the following 15 years. I guess I'm getting "behind the times" and I'm wondering what am I missing out on? Are the newer toys meaningfully better? Do you use a "current" machine in your work and how does it differ from machines built 10-20 years ago?

Click to expand...

Machines have improved in many ways, and there a few things that are becoming less common, that I would not like to see go away.
Spindles in the 12k to 15k speed range are now the norm. So are very fast rapids. What's really changed is how the machine can utilize that capability. Controls have more look ahead, servos are faster responding. drives are more capable. CNC memory, still a choke point, is becoming less of an issue.
Probes and tool setters - once exotic hardware, are now fairly common on even low priced commodity machines. ATCs have gotten much faster, and larger.
All of this translates to better machining throughput. I run 80s vintage machines and I do well with them, but I'm really looking forward to the new Okuma I'm getting.

DouglasJRizzo said:

I run 80s vintage machines and I do well with them, but I'm really looking forward to the new Okuma I'm getting.

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Blasphemy!

EmanuelGoldstein said:

If anything, the situation with cadcam is worse now than it was twenty years ago. Autodicks now owns most of them and their direction is to the graveyard.

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Sad but true!

TeachMePlease said:

Eiffelturmbearbeitung - YouTube

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That's pretty cool looking, but those exposed linear ways packing with chips right there in the cut area makes my OCD tingle a little. How long can that possibly hold up? Is that Z axis going to sound like a cement mixer at 20,000 hours? 10,000 hours? I don't understand that design.

drcoelho said:

I still don't buy it. Even in Aerospace or Automotive, put a modern CNC machine with modern CAD/CAM against a 20 year old machine with old computer and old CAD/CAM....no contest, productivity much higher today. And yes, all the advanced technologies in CAD/CAM have become accessible to small shops, something that absolutely was not available 20+ years ago. Also, the complexity of parts being manufactureed has gone up as well. It would not have been practical say 30 years ago to build Apple iPhones with the CAD/CAM and CNC machines available at that time in the volumes we see today at the price points we see today...IMHO.

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I would say the old school programmers like me could make most of the product we make today with old software. One thing programming in the late 90's that has taught me is I have gotten lazier and more spoiled with todays software. We try to automate software to make things better, faster and cheaper yet we dumb down the users. Todays kids that talk about fusion 360 or other cheap software seem to lack the ability to think on creative ways of programming. They seem to click on a few buttons and tool path is created not knowing it this is the best and most efficient tool path created. I would say the guys that first started to use cad/cam are the users that really know their shit in programming.

drcoelho said:

Also, we have robotics in play as well, making 24x7 lights out operation possible, don't believe that was available back then....it's all about production volumes, and price per unit, and increase parts complexity.

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Lights out has been around for a very long time, even before I got into this industry. I would say parts are slightly more complex but not that much over the last 20 years. Depending on the type of setup, Robots are not doing that much since most places I see on youtube using them seem to turn a machine that can run multiple parts into a machine running 1 part and sometimes one op. In the auto industry Robots are great or in area that have mass quantity of parts that can run long period of time without interruption. If you are setting up a job to run 50 or a 100 parts I don't see using a robot without dedicated fixturing.

drcoelho said:

Now, if you have an old machine, and lots of time, and you don't care about your per part cost, OK sure, you can make it with older machine.....but that just reinforces my point, new machines have improved.

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Some new machines have improved quite a bit but then again some have excessive bells and whistles on them that most places do not need. Sometimes a good used machine is all a placed needs to make a boat load of money.