Narrowing down choices between a few manufacturers of 5 axis gantry mills, FPT Dinomax & Breton Matrix 1300 mainly, as well as Jobs Linx Compact. One item that's got me hung up is the C axis variations. FPT is steering us to a C axis with a +/- of 185 degrees. They can build a machine with an "endless" C axis but claim it is much more prone to maintenance problems and when maintenance is needed the repair work is much more extensive. The price of this item is substantial, as well. Breton is only offering their machine with an "endless" C axis and suggests no issues with this style of head, OF COURSE. The "endless" rotation eliminates the dangerous unwinds but is it worth the cons that come with this style of head? We build one off tooling and all we do is run new virgin code, nothing is ever proven out, so eliminating potential unforeseen problems is beneficial. Any thoughts or anyone running this style of machine that might have some comments?
Thanks, Mike.