Wondering aobut Swiss machining

3t3d · Mar 1, 2019

In a recent post I inquired about machining C12L14 vs some other choices.
It looked like C12L14 was most popular for screw machine work.

Then it hit me, maybe the parts should be done in a Swiss machine after all...

Now looking at at about 120,000 pieces, three individual parts. The largest part will fit into a 28mm round circle..
Small two parts fit into .75" circle... or so.

Could be all milled with an 1/8" End mill, along with four M3 tapped holes.
No actual turning involved.

Could I expect to find a used machine for around 100K tooled up?
Should be paid for in a few months.

This beats the labor costs to death if it works.
Any ideas?

Thanks again some more.

Mike1974 · Mar 1, 2019

3t3d said:
In a recent post I inquired about machining C12L14 vs some other choices.
It looked like C12L14 was most popular for screw machine work.

Then it hit me, maybe the parts should be done in a Swiss machine after all...

Now looking at at about 120,000 pieces, three individual parts. The largest part will fit into a 28mm round circle..
Small two parts fit into .75" circle... or so.

Could be all milled with an 1/8" End mill, along with four M3 tapped holes.
No actual turning involved.

Could I expect to find a used machine for around 100K tooled up?
Should be paid for in a few months.

This beats the labor costs to death if it works.
Any ideas?

Thanks again some more.

I don't know, BUT (a tangent

) I once worked in a shop that had 2 swiss turn style machines. We were making parts for one customer that we charged something like $6/each for. They ended up buying their own machine for said parts. Sorry I don't have any relevance here, other than I think Swiss style machines can be very profitable if run correctly..?

TeachMePlease · Mar 1, 2019

3t3d said:
In a recent post I inquired about machining C12L14 vs some other choices.
It looked like C12L14 was most popular for screw machine work.

Then it hit me, maybe the parts should be done in a Swiss machine after all...

Now looking at at about 120,000 pieces, three individual parts. The largest part will fit into a 28mm round circle..
Small two parts fit into .75" circle... or so.

Could be all milled with an 1/8" End mill, along with four M3 tapped holes.
No actual turning involved.

Could I expect to find a used machine for around 100K tooled up?
Should be paid for in a few months.

This beats the labor costs to death if it works.
Any ideas?

Thanks again some more.

So that puts you in the 32mm Swiss category. Which puts you at a Citizen L32 or a Star SR32 or ECAS32... I've never looked at the used market, but based on their new price, and what I know of machines reselling, I'd say $100K could put you into one that's not totally beat up, with tooling. If it's your first Swiss, I personally prefer Citizen for ease of setup/programming, but everyone has their own preference.

mhajicek · Mar 1, 2019

Gear driven live tools on Swiss machines have a relatively short life, limited RPM, and high rebuild cost. You can put in an electric spindle, but those tend to be a bit pricey.

Delw · Mar 1, 2019

before you go out and buy a swiss look into making the parts on a mill with fixtureing to hold a bunch of parts.
providing you mill repeats.
we have had a few jobs like that, we could have run in a swiss but we get just as good of a part in a mill faster then using live tooling on a swiss.
in our case we used the swiss just to slug the parts off and to keep the location dia with in a few tenths.
one thing you need to keep in mind when doing so is that you need to put as many parts in the mill at one time to justify the tool changing and loading of the fixture along with checking the parts so the spindle almost never stops except to change fixtures.

mhajicek · Mar 1, 2019

And use a pallet system so you can be reloading one while the other's running.

TeachMePlease · Mar 1, 2019

Delw said:
before you go out and buy a swiss look into making the parts on a mill with fixtureing to hold a bunch of parts.
providing you mill repeats.
we have had a few jobs like that, we could have run in a swiss but we get just as good of a part in a mill faster then using live tooling on a swiss.
in our case we used the swiss just to slug the parts off and to keep the location dia with in a few tenths.
one thing you need to keep in mind when doing so is that you need to put as many parts in the mill at one time to justify the tool changing and loading of the fixture along with checking the parts so the spindle almost never stops except to change fixtures.

Yeah, but you can load a Swiss with a 12 foot bar and leave it alone for 8 hours....

mhajicek · Mar 1, 2019

TeachMePlease said:
Yeah, but you can load a Swiss with a 12 foot bar and leave it alone for 8 hours....

You can cover a mill table with 100's of tiny parts and leave it alone for 8 hours too. I've seen some setups where you just bolt down a single solid plate and cut hundreds of parts out of it.

Delw · Mar 1, 2019

TeachMePlease said:
Yeah, but you can load a Swiss with a 12 foot bar and leave it alone for 8 hours....

thats true, add a automatic bar feed and let it run over night

you still need to check the parts off the machine so your really not leaving it alone

Delw · Mar 1, 2019

mhajicek said:
You can cover a mill table with 100's of tiny parts and leave it alone for 8 hours too. I've seen some setups where you just bolt down a single solid plate and cut hundreds of parts out of it.

kinda like this but this was only 15 parts. loading them was a bitch but you got used to it after the 1st hundred or so then it became second nature.

never really ran mitee bit clamps to this extent befor. didnt really think it would work as far as true postition on the last op when doing the back side chamfer as well as it did either. I was pretty impressed with them.
the hardest part was loading the parts for the last operation on the profile.
thats a 0-80 cut tap. I could have ran that in the citizen but I dont like compression tapping on blind holes. so did all the drilling tapping c-sinks both sides and profiling in the hass including facing off the .150 stk I used for the 1st op to hold parts. roll tapping was NOT an option had to be cut tapped.

yes a screw could of freed someone up but at that time the other machines had 10-40 min cycle times plus I didnt have contouring on my citizen just live tooling and a sub spindle so making the sub spindle collet wasnt a good option.

Orange Vise · Mar 1, 2019

mhajicek said:
Gear driven live tools on Swiss machines have a relatively short life, limited RPM, and high rebuild cost. You can put in an electric spindle, but those tend to be a bit pricey.

Would this be something like a 2hp CNC router spindle?

mhajicek · Mar 1, 2019

Orange Vise said:
Would this be something like a 2hp CNC router spindle?

Machine Tools | NSK America Corp.
High Speed Spindles – For milling, grinding and drilling | IBAG North America

Nerdlinger · Mar 1, 2019

Can you give us a print or even a modified sketch to work off off? I can make a program quick for my Tsugami Swiss and tell you the simulated run time if it looks like a good fit.

Rick Finsta · Mar 1, 2019

In my mind, the two biggest production benefits of a Swiss are parallel operations, followed by barfed stock. If there were an "honorable mention" it would be parts collection. You'd have to buy two mills and a robot to try and compete with a Swiss cycle time on some parts. I was making parts today (for several hours while we all sat around jawing over beers) that would be a good fit for a milling machine, and were being made with mill and lathe operations by our customer prior to us getting the work. Total cycle time was 74 seconds (38s front, 36s back) but you get a part every 38 seconds. With 12' bars and a magazine feeder I can run ca. 750 3.5" long parts unattended, at 38s each for (with bar changes) a full 8 hour shift.

If the part is a good fit, I think you'll have trouble making it more profitably than on a Swiss. Unless maybe with a Brother...

I agree that a drawing would help us tell you if we think the part is a good fit for Swiss.

If you have a contract in place, look into a new machine and skip payments. You may be able to have the machine paid for before you've made a payment based on your indicated amortization on a $100k machine.

ETA: where in WI are you? I'd invite you to stop by our shop if you're near Milwaukee and see some of the milling we do on our Swiss.

Guest · Mar 2, 2019

mhajicek said:
You can cover a mill table with 100's of tiny parts and leave it alone for 8 hours too. I've seen some setups where you just bolt down a single solid plate and cut hundreds of parts out of it.

You can also hook a bar loader, part conveyor, and chip conveyor to a Swiss and leave it alone for days. That set-up would be a lot cheaper than a pallet system for a mill.

mhajicek · Mar 2, 2019

Dualkit said:
You can also hook a bar loader, part conveyor, and chip conveyor to a Swiss and leave it alone for days. That set-up would be a lot cheaper than a pallet system for a mill.

Depends on the pallet system. I was referring to a manual-swap pallet, for probably around $1000 or so.

StirlingMachine · Mar 2, 2019

If it's all milling seems like a good fit would be a 30 taper mill as stated above with pallets. Seems like brother R650 with the integrated pallet changer would crush it on those parts. Not getting the bar fed and the stock utilization advantage, but I'm guessing you could do the milling a lot faster and be ahead in the end.

TeachMePlease · Mar 2, 2019

mhajicek said:
You can cover a mill table with 100's of tiny parts and leave it alone for 8 hours too. I've seen some setups where you just bolt down a single solid plate and cut hundreds of parts out of it.

I'd rather load 20 bars every day than load 100 fixtures... But that's just me. And being a Swiss guy, I admit, I'm biased...

Zahnrad Kopf · Mar 2, 2019

Rick Finsta said:
I was making parts today (for several hours while we all sat around jawing over beers) that would be a good fit for a milling machine, and were being made with mill and lathe operations by our customer prior to us getting the work. Total cycle time was 74 seconds (38s front, 36s back) but you get a part every 38 seconds. With 12' bars and a magazine feeder I can run ca. 750 3.5" long parts unattended, at 38s each for (with bar changes) a full 8 hour shift.

< snippage >

If you have a contract in place, look into a new machine and skip payments. You may be able to have the machine paid for before you've made a payment based on your indicated amortization on a $100k machine.

ETA: where in WI are you? I'd invite you to stop by our shop if you're near Milwaukee and see some of the milling we do on our Swiss.

Crap. I wish I knew this two days ago. We have not purchased a Swiss yet. It's on the list for immediately following the move, and I've been getting started with the slap & tickle process recently. So, I just sent out some RFQs for swiss parts. If I'd've known, I'd've sent them to you as well. I've made no secret that I much rather keep the money local.

Shoot me your e* so I can send some stuff over for quote.

And, if 3t3d makes it over, maybe we can all grab a burger together. :cheers:

Rick Finsta · Mar 2, 2019

We actually just sent a gear RFQ your way! I'll drop you a message with my work contact info.

Wondering aobut Swiss machining

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