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Tell me About seimens controls!

BRIAN.T

Cast Iron
Joined
Jul 23, 2018
Location
Los Angeles
We are getting a new machine (TBD) and I refuse to buy anything with a fanuc control, ever, under any circumstances.

I run heidenhain mostly these days. But heidenhain is very difficult to find and expensive on 3 axis mills. That being said I'll likely order seimens. I've never run seimens in my life. But it can't be worse than fanuc.

Tell me what you like about them, what you don't like about them. Perhaps some of you run both heidenhain and seimens you could juxtapose for me. Thanks
 
I’d rather have the clap
It’s easier to get rid of
Don


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Haha that's fantastic, but not great for me. Let me ask you this. Do you like fanuc? Do you prefer fanuc? If so we might value different things in control.
 
Until it is 12-15 years old and Siemens don't support it any longer. And, 3rd party parts or tech assistance is about 5% of what is available for Fanuc.

The likelihood of me owning a machine for longer than 10 years is very low. Aside from that, how is the functionality? I want a control that's easy to use for my operators. I don't want to have to print out pages of notes for people to know which a tools are where. Things like that.
 
The likelihood of me owning a machine for longer than 10 years is very low. Aside from that, how is the functionality? I want a control that's easy to use for my operators. I don't want to have to print out pages of notes for people to know which a tools are where. Things like that.

Pretty sure that rules out most things German :D
 
The likelihood of me owning a machine for longer than 10 years is very low. Aside from that, how is the functionality? I want a control that's easy to use for my operators. I don't want to have to print out pages of notes for people to know which a tools are where. Things like that.

I'm afraid I know very little about Siemens controls, but I am very familiar with Fanuc and well understand your reluctance.

If operator friendliness is your goal, Hurco should be at the top of your list.
 
Pretty sure that rules out most things German :D

Is that accurate in your opinion? Heidenhain is extremely easy. I had my guys doing the basics in no time. We all still get turned around on our newest fanuc, we've all been using them for years. Where would seimens fall between that spectrum?
 
I'm afraid I know very little about Siemens controls, but I am very familiar with Fanuc and well understand your reluctance.

If operator friendliness is your goal, Hurco should be at the top of your list.

Ide be interested in playing around with a hurco, I've heard good things. How is their 3 axis lineup?
 
Now I'm a bit confused....
How'bout a Haas?
It isn't Fanuc, nor is it any worse than a Hurco.

Well to be fair, I've heard as many bad things. But that seems to be the case with most machine tools these days. I definitely won't buy a Haas. And if hurco is in the same ballpark I won't buy one of those either.
 
I have an 840D on a 3 axis DMC103V with a 4th and it took a while to figure out the very few things I needed to know to make parts. The tool management manual alone is 1000 pages! I was able to get some useful assistance from the Siemens control forum when I was setting it up. Also, a few people here know them well and are very helpful. The DMG manual that came with the machine was poorly translated. That said, since setup last fall,its been trouble free for my use which is prototype, very short run stuff.
 
Is that accurate in your opinion? Heidenhain is extremely easy. I had my guys doing the basics in no time. We all still get turned around on our newest fanuc, we've all been using them for years. Where would seimens fall between that spectrum?

I find most things German to be overly complicated, though many are very high quality. A friend of mine runs a shop with a few Moris with Heidenhain's and he despises them. I have never used one and am rather partial to Japanese machines and controls. What ever you do don't but a machine this is made in a different language speaking country than the control. My limited experience had been that is what normally determines how well the control is or isn't integrated into the machine.
 
My buddy bought a Dmg for 1.6 mil with Siemens control every time there was a problem Dmg would say it’s a Siemens deal you call Siemens they say it’s the machine tool builder a never ending loop of bull shit
Don


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
My buddy bought a Dmg for 1.6 mil with Siemens control every time there was a problem Dmg would say it’s a Siemens deal you call Siemens they say it’s the machine tool builder a never ending loop of bull shit
Don


I only made one call to DMG support for this machine right after I got it and I got the impression that they wanted to forget they ever made it. Not the same response at all for my DMU50v, its got an oddball Millplus control, but there were lots of people at DMG support that wanted to do anything they could to help out on that machine, sending responses at all hours to any question I had.
 
As you might notice from some of the responses here, training and support stateside is not always the best with Siemens. Also take the criticisms with a grain of salt, as most of the people who are going to make generalizations about "Siemens is crap" probably aren't talking about the 828d or 840d that have been the standard for the last decade.

I find it to be an excellent control when properly implemented. Very similar to a HH control in that the canned cycles can be opened and edited with the graphical interface, tool names can be pneumonic, etc... Parametric programming is leaps-and-bounds ahead of FANUC, tool management is excessively thorough, large program handling is simple, and conversational programming is shockingly good. There are a lot of simple features that make sense to new users, but tend to piss off the old hags who demand that it behave like a FANUC. Again, if you are happy with the HH, I think you will find it offers most of the same functionality.

I will exercise one word of caution here though. As you have said - it's really hard to find "budget" machines with the HH control, but there is a whole slew of Korean and Chinese machines that have Siemens 828d and 840d controllers on them. My theory (and it's just a theory) is that Siemens does not control the integrations nearly as tightly as HH does. What that means is that there are some really shitty machines out there with absolutely terrible Siemens control integrations. I would be really hesitant to buy a machine from any of the Chinese builders where the Siemens control is an option that they only install on one out of a hundred machines.
 
I have a DMU105 with a Heidenhain TNC640 control and a DMC65 with a Seimens 840D control. Both have many pros and cons. Really for me it comes do to how much or if any programming will be done in either controls native language for conversational programming. If you plan to program everything off line with CAM either control will be great. On the other hand if you plan to do lots of native conversational programming on the controls the Heidenhain wins big in my book.
 
I find most things German to be overly complicated, though many are very high quality. A friend of mine runs a shop with a few Moris with Heidenhain's and he despises them. I have never used one and am rather partial to Japanese machines and controls. What ever you do don't but a machine this is made in a different language speaking country than the control. My limited experience had been that is what normally determines how well the control is or isn't integrated into the machine.

Tell your friend he is wrong! Ha. Also, this particular situation is hard for me to debate if you've only ever used japanese controls (fanuc and mits?) Then you don't know what you're missing in my opinion. You're partial to them because it's what you know. Which I find to be the problem with most fanuc only people. I don't at all mean for this to come off rude or anything. I didn't realize how much I hated fanuc until I got on a HH.
 
As you might notice from some of the responses here, training and support stateside is not always the best with Siemens. Also take the criticisms with a grain of salt, as most of the people who are going to make generalizations about "Siemens is crap" probably aren't talking about the 828d or 840d that have been the standard for the last decade.

I find it to be an excellent control when properly implemented. Very similar to a HH control in that the canned cycles can be opened and edited with the graphical interface, tool names can be pneumonic, etc... Parametric programming is leaps-and-bounds ahead of FANUC, tool management is excessively thorough, large program handling is simple, and conversational programming is shockingly good. There are a lot of simple features that make sense to new users, but tend to piss off the old hags who demand that it behave like a FANUC. Again, if you are happy with the HH, I think you will find it offers most of the same functionality.

I will exercise one word of caution here though. As you have said - it's really hard to find "budget" machines with the HH control, but there is a whole slew of Korean and Chinese machines that have Siemens 828d and 840d controllers on them. My theory (and it's just a theory) is that Siemens does not control the integrations nearly as tightly as HH does. What that means is that there are some really shitty machines out there with absolutely terrible Siemens control integrations. I would be really hesitant to buy a machine from any of the Chinese builders where the Siemens control is an option that they only install on one out of a hundred machines.

I believe you might be the man to answer my questions! I like you believe that most people who (think) they prefer fanuc are people who are grumpy old machinist who have been using them for years. I am relatively young in this industry and I foresee a sea change away from fanuc, I'm from the age of the cell phone, my car is a computer on wheels. Why would I want a green screen POS calculator from the 80s to work on. Anytime someone tells me they prefer fanuc I immediately dismiss their opinion.

As for budget machine, I'm definitely not looking for a cheap machine, I would never buy a Chinese no name thing. If I can convince the owner to go with a Mikron 3 axis (hh) that's my top choice, but at about 170k that's a little much for 3 axis. That's why I'm looking at perhaps doosan with seimens, it's my understanding all their european versions are seimens. What 3 axis machine do you like that is well integrated with seimens?
 
I have a DMU105 with a Heidenhain TNC640 control and a DMC65 with a Seimens 840D control. Both have many pros and cons. Really for me it comes do to how much or if any programming will be done in either controls native language for conversational programming. If you plan to program everything off line with CAM either control will be great. On the other hand if you plan to do lots of native conversational programming on the controls the Heidenhain wins big in my book.

That is an excellent contribution thanks. In my opinion ZERO programming should be done at the control, ever. I can visit part files from 3 years ago, change a tool number, post and go. That's how it should be.
 








 
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