macgyver
Stainless
- Joined
- Aug 2, 2012
- Location
- Pittsburg, KS
Well, it finally happened, I was able to have the new to me router delivered this past week and set it place. As of today I do not have it powered up yet, but should very soon.
I figure that I would post it up here to do a little show and tell, maybe spark some more discussion on the routers and I figure that I can tell my reasons for why I did what I did.
The machine I bought is a 1992 Komo, it was built in MN, it is a multi spindle machine with a 5x8 table and a Fanuc OM control. For me a lot of the decision to look for this brand in particular was due to running one at my old job for many years. The top things I was looking for in a used machine for me was an american made 24/7/365 duty cycle machine, common control, and of course within my budget while still in good shape. I had set my budget for $25k or under, partly from watching the market the past year and also what I was comfortable with for a loan. That did not make for a very large market to shop from. I watched the auctions and any kind of ads for a long time while working on the financing for it. I would have preferred a tool changer, but I am very comfortable with the multi spindle machine, I can make it do what I want to and for very high production parts you can't beat multiple spindles cutting at the same time. For me the priority was a machine that I felt was extremely reliable vs ultimate speed and bells and whistles. Again, I know the Komo's pretty well and had developed a good network of techs etc of the people that know them. I am comfortable with the Fanuc and I am going to program in the office. This machine is not the fastest thing out but will keep running as long as I take care of it. I had a couple others that I was in charge of at the old job and while they were very fast etc, they were also high strung and needed more upkeep than I was happy about. One had the PC front end and a nice pretty touch screen. Well, the touch screen/PC went out on it and was very expensive to replace. Also since it was the control it had to have all the parameters loaded back in. Not a great experience, so when I went shopping for mine, I wanted something else and I kept reverting back to this generation of Komo.
I also wanted a heavy built machine that could take some heavy cuts and some heavy tooling. I had a little bit of time on some others (Busellato, Thermwood, Motionmaster) and they were just not in the same class of machine, all the components were much smaller and lighter duty. I want to be able to cut aluminum and solid wood without a worry about the machines capacity.
I know that this machine is lacking in a couple areas and I plan to address them in the future with another machine next to it. Namely one that has much more Z and a control that will handle 3D surfacing and huge amounts of code easily, but first things first.
So, onto new machine day: I had alot of things seem to get in the way of physically getting it home and it took me longer than I had hoped to resolve the issues. The machine is 11x24ft and weighs just under 24,000 lbs. The transport to my shop was the easy part, it was the rigging off the truck into the shop that gave me problems. If you don't know, I have set up shop in a old grocery store and there was not a large door in it or any kind of approach to that nonexistent door, just loose gravel. The big thing that messed up my budget was the power lines above the door to my shop. This meant that they could not get close to the building with the machine, so they proposed bringing some steel plates and building it up level with the floor so that they could set the machine on it, then skate it in. By the time we added up the machines, plates, riggers and number of hours estimated, their initial quote doubled what I had budgeted. So, I spent too many nights trying to come up with a cheaper way to do it. In the end I wasted alot of time. It ended up taking half the time to get it in and the price was actually within a couple hundred of my budget. They showed up at 8 AM and left at 11 AM. They used their 50 ton crane, and I had a neighbor bring his big forklift to set the plate. There was a comm link missing somewhere and they only brought one plate so we ended up building a railroad to run it in on. It honestly was probably as quick as setting multiple plates. My baby Datsun couldn't pull it off the plate, so the neighbor pushed with his outside and once it got inside, I could move it easily with mine. We had to go app 35ft then turn 90 deg and go another 30 ft. It is wider than my door, so I had to pull part of the wall down too. That was the hardest part of my day.
Still alot of remodeling to finish and get my hobbies in another location, but I am happy with where we are so far.
Jumpy video and pics here: Moving Komo Into Shop Photos by macgyver37 | Photobucket
Thanks for looking
Jason
I figure that I would post it up here to do a little show and tell, maybe spark some more discussion on the routers and I figure that I can tell my reasons for why I did what I did.
The machine I bought is a 1992 Komo, it was built in MN, it is a multi spindle machine with a 5x8 table and a Fanuc OM control. For me a lot of the decision to look for this brand in particular was due to running one at my old job for many years. The top things I was looking for in a used machine for me was an american made 24/7/365 duty cycle machine, common control, and of course within my budget while still in good shape. I had set my budget for $25k or under, partly from watching the market the past year and also what I was comfortable with for a loan. That did not make for a very large market to shop from. I watched the auctions and any kind of ads for a long time while working on the financing for it. I would have preferred a tool changer, but I am very comfortable with the multi spindle machine, I can make it do what I want to and for very high production parts you can't beat multiple spindles cutting at the same time. For me the priority was a machine that I felt was extremely reliable vs ultimate speed and bells and whistles. Again, I know the Komo's pretty well and had developed a good network of techs etc of the people that know them. I am comfortable with the Fanuc and I am going to program in the office. This machine is not the fastest thing out but will keep running as long as I take care of it. I had a couple others that I was in charge of at the old job and while they were very fast etc, they were also high strung and needed more upkeep than I was happy about. One had the PC front end and a nice pretty touch screen. Well, the touch screen/PC went out on it and was very expensive to replace. Also since it was the control it had to have all the parameters loaded back in. Not a great experience, so when I went shopping for mine, I wanted something else and I kept reverting back to this generation of Komo.
I also wanted a heavy built machine that could take some heavy cuts and some heavy tooling. I had a little bit of time on some others (Busellato, Thermwood, Motionmaster) and they were just not in the same class of machine, all the components were much smaller and lighter duty. I want to be able to cut aluminum and solid wood without a worry about the machines capacity.
I know that this machine is lacking in a couple areas and I plan to address them in the future with another machine next to it. Namely one that has much more Z and a control that will handle 3D surfacing and huge amounts of code easily, but first things first.
So, onto new machine day: I had alot of things seem to get in the way of physically getting it home and it took me longer than I had hoped to resolve the issues. The machine is 11x24ft and weighs just under 24,000 lbs. The transport to my shop was the easy part, it was the rigging off the truck into the shop that gave me problems. If you don't know, I have set up shop in a old grocery store and there was not a large door in it or any kind of approach to that nonexistent door, just loose gravel. The big thing that messed up my budget was the power lines above the door to my shop. This meant that they could not get close to the building with the machine, so they proposed bringing some steel plates and building it up level with the floor so that they could set the machine on it, then skate it in. By the time we added up the machines, plates, riggers and number of hours estimated, their initial quote doubled what I had budgeted. So, I spent too many nights trying to come up with a cheaper way to do it. In the end I wasted alot of time. It ended up taking half the time to get it in and the price was actually within a couple hundred of my budget. They showed up at 8 AM and left at 11 AM. They used their 50 ton crane, and I had a neighbor bring his big forklift to set the plate. There was a comm link missing somewhere and they only brought one plate so we ended up building a railroad to run it in on. It honestly was probably as quick as setting multiple plates. My baby Datsun couldn't pull it off the plate, so the neighbor pushed with his outside and once it got inside, I could move it easily with mine. We had to go app 35ft then turn 90 deg and go another 30 ft. It is wider than my door, so I had to pull part of the wall down too. That was the hardest part of my day.
Still alot of remodeling to finish and get my hobbies in another location, but I am happy with where we are so far.
Jumpy video and pics here: Moving Komo Into Shop Photos by macgyver37 | Photobucket
Thanks for looking
Jason