I was sharing some news from work on the Stumpyville thread and thought I'd pull it over here for the CNC geeks to enjoy….
We're likely going to drop $100K on (another) new CNC router and $125K on an automated panel saw at work and
I've been swimming in CNC router specs and features and minutia details about their inner workings. I'm dealing with some very knowledgeable sales people and feel like I've learned a TON in two weeks. One guy told me "very few customers ask these type of questions" and I took that as a compliment. My boss has the final decision, but says he will lean heavilly on my recommendation, so I don't want to screw it up.
As much as I love this stuff, I've been staying late every night and am getting a bit burned out by it all.
Here are three of the machines being considered…
MultiCam DT5000
Giben G2
CNT 1000
What I really want, is to build a garage and park one of these bad boys in it, hang out a shingle and play.
I used to hang out on CNCZone & WoodWeb, and there are certainly active companies doing great work with machines like the Luguna or ShopBot.
I think the big difference is the duty cycle and the productivity features. By way of comparison, our MultiCAM DT5000 weighs 8,500 lbs (rigging it into the bowels of our foam shop requiered two fork trucks and some head scratching). Here were my minimum specs that every machine considered had to meet at a baseline.
Note that all of these machines require reliable (no convertors) 3 phase power, and in abundance.
A high quality spindle with ≥ 12HP
A regenerative blower vacuum pump with ≥ 15 HP
Automatic tool changer with ≥ 8 tool holders.
Highly effective dust collection system.
Cutting speeds ≥ 900 ipm
Reliable electronics package.
A robust and rigid frame.
Matt, I recently looked at the Giben CNC machine. It is made overseas and utilizes cast Iron for most structural componants. (Yes, I said Iron - although it is their own alloy of Iron, it is a heavy SOB)
The Onsrud machines start around $85K the last time I looked at them - I ve used several different versions. Fairly reliable if you get the upgraded controller.
I looked at MultiCam per your suggestion but didn t find what I was looking for. (Kitchen Cabinet guy speaking, of course)
Biesse is the machine we went with, though it is an older used machine and mostly in Italiano, it is a solid performer. Like buying a used car, though, it has its maintenance issues. A few bearings have broken seals and dry out and gunk up, but, so far, nothing serious. It is, by far, one of the strongest and fastest machines I ve ever seen or used. At the price we got into it, the deal was incredible. ($48K range used for a $111K machine when new)
It would seem that your boss is liking making money with the machines he s got and could be looking for the BBD (Bigger Better Deal). How exciting.
I know you know your stuff and appreciate you chiming in. We bought our last machine (CNT 900 series) used (but very lightly so) back in 2010 and got a smoking deal on it. And it's still chugging along….
In my experience there's three different flavors of used.
1. Company went belly up in a bad economy and sold a great machine that they didn't want to lose. But the economy is so good right now that these opportunites aren't popping up.
2. Company has rode the machine hard for years and is just starting to encounter significant down time and maintenance expenses. These have a high risk of being maintenance headaches.
3. Company realizes that they bought the wrong machine and wants to upgrade… but I think these usually get traded in.
ONSRUD certainly makes a top shelf industrial machine, but the ones I've seen were a couple steps above what I perceive our needs are. We're far enough down the road that I don't think I want to bring in another company.
I evaluated 5 machines from three companies and feel we got a pretty good lay of the landscape.
Our experience is that we spend more time clearing the table and loading the next sheet than we do running the programs, so we're looking into two cool features that should really ramp up our productivity. Though we have decent DC in this shop, the CNT900 is an 15 year old "mid-tear" machine and the DC attachement is "iffy" (4" line offset from the spindle head).
1. A table sweep/rake. This is a snow plow like beam that is moutned to the gantry. After the program is done, the gantry retracts to end, drops the sweep and the moves the lenght of the table, pushing the parts, scrap web, and a lot of the debris off the other end. The better designs have DC buiilt into the sweep, so the table is also vacuumed clean of any dust and chips and is ready to load, with no operator action.
2. An integrated off feed conveyour. Giben has a very reasonably priced accessory conveyor table, with integral DC that collects the dust scraped off the table by the sweep and moves the parts and scrap web out of the way.
The goal is that the operator can immediately load the next sheet and hit play, and then go stack his parts and toss the web in the hopper while the program runs.
This setup is on a G4, with auto-sheet feeding… which we've ruled out…. but the table scrape and off feed converyor are the same as the G2 we're considering.
Used Machine scenario #4; Large national manufacturing company has six machines in two separate buildings for more than a decade. Owner is approaching retirement age and gets an amazing cash offer that's too good to refuse for the rather large parcel of real estate his buildings are on.
He buys a new, smaller property and builds a single massive building to consolidate his operations in. He figures he can sell off, rather than pay to move and re-set up, the least often used machine and not be any worse for wear. Hence, a 12 year old machine with about 2 or 3 years worth of use on it.
Sorry Doug… I was thinkiing of you, as I know you run big machines and program in Cabinet Vission, but I got you confused with JL7 Jeff…. as I've had CNC poop shoots with him as well
That's my story and I'm sticking with it!
It had nothing to do with age or mental capacity… not a thing
;^)
Now what was I doing again
:^o
Which reminds me… did you ever finish your home brew build? Inquiring minds want to know :^P
That's Okay Matt, I was just teasing ya' about the name thing.
My CNC build is in limbo for a few years now. Ever since I had a couple of heart attacks about 4 years ago, that project got re-prioritized near the bottom of the list. I keep looking at it and thinking it is time to jump back into it.
I have a mental checklist of the things that need to happen to finish it. Sadly, I want to take it apart a re-do several things. It may still happen.
For now, work keeps me full-time busy and I have lots of fun tools to play with lately.
My CNC build is in limbo for a few years now. Ever since I had a couple of heart attacks about 4 years ago, that project got re-prioritized near the bottom of the list.
- DS
Ouch… didn't know that (or if I did, I spaced it). Hope you're recovering well. Stints?
I'm getting to the point that I know a fair bit "about" CNC routers, but I rarely ever get to play with them and when I do, it's simplistic 2D geometries.
I'd really like to get a seat of Aspire and do some full blown 3D contour cutting and V-carving…. but alas, there's only so many hours in a day, and like you, I need to work to pay da bills (and have two kids in college bleeding me dry).
Maybe I'll be able to try some more difficult stuff now that I have a palm router slave spindle set up on my CNC mini-mill.
Designed it and cut it on the mill from 3/4 T6061. Then took it to work and used a slitting saw to cut the slots, drilled and tapped, etc… on the Bridgeport clone.
Just blocking the basic shapes, the carver did the pattern. We don't have Aspire, this was all in Cabinetvision. (2 1/2D)
The screen to machine is basically Alphacam Router, so the moldings weren't too hard.
Maybe someday the carvings will come along on the CNC.
I'm Curious, couldn't the mill spindle on the mill serve for routing if you could chuck a bit in there?
Maybe the speeds aren't appropriate for routing?
Matt, something tells me you will be playing with CNC a lot more in the near future…
and, P.S. the kids don't stop bleeding ya' dry - even after college.
I think sometimes people get the wrong ideas about CNC. It never replaces the craftsman.
For me, 99.9% of the time, it alleviates the mundane operations of casework and allows me to focus on the larger macro-picture of the creative aspects of the entire project.
The other 0.1% of the time, it enables me to challenge myself on a project like these arches that I otherwise might not have attempted.
I didn't mean to hijack this thread. Sorry.
Obviously, your new CNC purchase will be more suited to the work you do, (Foam packaging?), but, still, I imagine it will have a similar effect for you-99.9% relief from mundane work and 0.1% enhanced creativity on projects you might not otherwise attempt.
We do iindustrial protective packaging and have shops dedicated to foam fab (die cutting, CNC profiling, and CNC knife cutting, and lots of assembly), short run box shop (CNC sample table and programable short run box makers, as well as die cutting, etc…), new and recycled pallet operations, a patented products department for our proprietary mishandling indicators, and crating (this operation is going nuts with new business and is the focus of this upgrade).
We're looking to upgrade are front loading Biesse Selco beam saw with a rear loading, auto-feeding beam saw. And we need to augment our CNC router with a new machine.
The routers are used to cut components for different style shipping containers. Circles for large "spools", cradles for crates, and deck plates with precision placed cut outs and holes for crates and skids.
Our biggest problem is that we can't hire our way out of the hole our steady growth creates for us again and again. The unemployment rate in our state is 2.7% and people can drive 30 miles south into very good paying jobs in aerospace and a naval shipyard. Because we run a lot of industrial equipment we do pre-employment drug testing and it's scarey how many "candidates" that eliminates… making our hiring efforts that much harder. Even with bumping up our starting wage by 30%, we still can't man the shops.
So we're looking for machinery that can make our existing labor force more productive and to mitigate some of the lifting and material handling with auto-feed and auto sweep machine upgrades. Fortunately, the owners have always been willing to pump money back into the business.
The board of directors has approved our panel shop equipment upgrade plan…. to the tune of $250K
The new CNC router is a Giben G4 full-auto line (see min. 3:30 for the table sweep and re-load). It has an 18 HP, 24,000 rpm spindle, twin 10 HP vacuum pumps, 1,000 ipm cutting speeds, 8 position gantry mounted automatic tool changing carousel, and a 5×5 drill head. It also has auto-sheet loading via. scissors table and vacuum cups, and auto parts rake/table sweep that offloades the parts and scrap onto a conveyor table.
The panles saw is a rear-fed, auto-loading Giben Icon Fast sized to handle 10' sheets. The software allows us to load a full lift of plywood and optimize/cut multiple jobs in one program, with the display telling the operator what parts are being cut at any point in time and automatically printing the appropriate label as it pops them out.
I have to confess that I'm more than a bit apprehensive about recommending this purchase, as they put a lot of weight on my input. And that means you know who will be the one they point their finger at if things don't work out as planned. But at the end of the day, this machinery will equip us very well in support of our 10 year plan to grow the company some 50%.
Our little engineering crew is really going to have to up our game, as there's a lot more that goes into programing for these more automated machines.
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