I have been doing some research for the company I work for looking for a good CNC Turning Machine to produce our parts. We currently have only manual machines, and outsource most of our large runs. We will do about 6 differant jobs, in 40,000 pc per year, so the machine won't take long to pay for itself. My research criteria is as follows:
1. Capacity to make parts ranging in diameter from 1/8” to 5/8”
2. Ability to have auto-bar loading for a “lights out” operation.
3. Sub-spindle for back end work
4. Minimum of three live tools to spot, drill and tap, at 90 positioning
5. Quick return on investment
6. Ability to cut a .016 slit in a 1/2” O.D., thru to 1/8” I.D., at a .051 per rev helical pitch, about the c axis.
The machines that I have my eye on at this point are:
  1. Traub TNK 36
  2. DMG SPRINT 32 LINEAR
  3. INTERTECH 42-9 LSS

The Traub and DMG are high end with all the bells and whistles (and then some), but the Intertech has some features that are pretty cool, like an manual pulse generator that allows you to go through you G-Code, forward and reverse, in a dry run with a hand wheel.
Does anyone have experience with these machine who could give me some suggestions?