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We are in the market for a 3 axis lathe with live tooling. Maybe one with tapered tool holders and a tool changer. Does anybody have any recommendations as far as what we should be looking for? I have personally set-up only one of these in my 24 years as a cnc guy. It was a Hitachi-Seiki. It was quite an impressive machine. The owner here wants to go with a Miyano. I'm looking for comments and suggestions...
Well that depends on a few things. The diameter of workpieces. Is quality and reliability a higher priority than production speed?
Miyano lathes are suitable for larger batches because it takes time to rigg them.
As a Miyano-enthusiast in Sweden, I'd highly recommend Miyano-machines.
Our work will be primarily collet work. 2.0" and under in dia. Mostly under an inch. We will use a 12" barfeeder and run high quantities of threaded parts with tight tolerances. Our thread minors and majors on our unique threads, are +\-.001" for example. And there are shoulders, depths, and hole patterns are tight also. The parts we are buying this machine for are high quantity... though we have a good deal of short, prototype runs also, so no doubt we will use machine for this, as well as the occasional chuck job. We make cutting tools out of hss (M2) also, so we will need an accurate, repeatable machine that can hold tolerances, and won't be too big of a pain in the butt to set-up
ahhhh i miss my Hitachi's
Both ...Mori and Nakamoura make a good lathe and still stick with Fanuc.
Stay away from any control that is unique to a builder or type of machine.
If you could send me a crude drawing(if its sensitive) of the part I'd gladly recommend a machine.
Mori Seiki has the best live tooling set up IMO right now on a medium sized lathe.
Doesn't really matter what you go with as long as YOU HAVE GOOD SUPPORT IN YOUR AREA! Thats critical. And stay away from odd ball controls.