[MojosMachine]

I heard that the new Fadals,since they were bought out again, are now going to run Funac controls. Aslo Fadal is now coming out with a Lathe. Has any body else heard this?

[rickyt]

yes the were in some of the mag's and will be at IMTS. They looked pretty good, but will they be better than older fadals. I like that they have Fanuc controls on them.

[Neal]

FYI--- We offer the Fadal MP CNC control, The siemens 840D control, and the Fanuc 18i MB5 control. At IMTS you will see the Fanuc Oi MC control and the new lathe and horizontal are scheduled to be there as well.

Neal

[MojosMachine]

So the old control will still be offered. I like the siemens 840D. I have not run a fanuc control in 15 years but the Siemens I run every day.

[MoldMaker]

I have run the 88,Mp32 and the new 18i. There is something unique
about each one that I wish the others had.

18i 6535, The fanuc drives are flawless at highfeed. 3-400ipm
MP32 2216, Transferring files is so sweet., and the abilty to do windows
based editing,networking. File transfers have never been this
seamless in my 20yrs experience.
88? 4525, Solid control. I like the toolsetting cycle on this one.
Comfortable max feeds are in the 100-150IPm range.
I have heard good things about the Siemans but have not had the
privlege yet.
just my .02

[MojosMachine]

Thanks for the info. I was a little apprihensive on the new fanuc controls. I will be in the market for a new mill after the first of the year and wasnt sure about them. I have a 4020 with the fadal control on it. We do a lot of small quick set up 1 - 2 piece parts that a controls that is easy to program on the fly from the shop floor is a must.

[MoldMaker]

I never understood why fanuc never created a more shop floor friendly control. It may be that the Mp32 with Gibbs would suit your shop better.
If Fadal could do a MP32 with Fanuc drives, now that would be the ticket

[MojosMachine]

The standard control fits our needs faily well. Its easy to do bolt holes and circles easy enough and I know G codes enough to do small jobs but I run surfcam for anything thats halfway complex. So for its worked out well for us other than have a lot of maintence problems with the 4020. Fadal has still not fixed a problem that we have had since day 1 and still occurs and the machine is 4 years old. From this point I dont know if I would buy another one. I heard a lot of good things about it but we have had some issues with ours.

[Mike Stevenson]

IMHO Fanuc is the best control on the market. All the rest pale in comparison and are only imitations. Fanuc G code is by far the most users friendly programming there is. If you think conversational is the way to go you are a fool. Conversational programming locks you into their ideas of how to cut the part. With G code you can make that tool do whatever you want on a move by move basis. The same goes for programming systems. Most parts don't need completely automated routines which usually end up with very inefficient roughing tool paths that cut too much air. That's where a language based system like NCL comes in.

1.) Better tool control.
2.) Better automatic routines.
3.) Outstanding Post Processor output.

http://www.nccs.com/pages/Products_main.html

[DareBee]

If you think conversational is the way to go you are a fool. Conversational programming locks you into their ideas of how to cut the part.

Wrong (and a little right)

As a (mostly) 1 off shop the picto-conversational controls are superb, they save a lot of time and money.
Yes you are limited to using only the MOPs built into the control and they are somewhat limited in their fine-tune-ability, but we have done some very impressive parts on this control.
My reference is my FAGOR controlled lathe.

As far as programming using G-code goes - These controls are 100% G-code compatible and I can feed it a program out of CAM software any time I wish.


Although for production work a conversational control is of very little use.

[fizzissist]

Count me in on the fool side! We've got a Mazak chucker and a Fadal mill. Conversational AND g-code sitting side-by-side on our floor.

We do primarily one-off and prototype, with a smattering of short-run production. I'm here to tell you that the Mazak saves me tons of time in programming. I used to hear stories from the Mazak salesman that at a lot of shops the guys on the machines would prefer to just take the prints on the floor and program at the machine because it was easier and faster. I'm now a believer.

If I need to I can insert g-code into the Mazatrol, or program entirely in g-code either at the machine or offline.

Our Fadal control is the old '88, and we run in Format 1. It's got its shortcomings, but it's productive and 99.9% of the time if there's a problem, it's us, not the control.

There are some canned cycles I'd like to see in the Fadal, and I think it'd be a great PR effort on Fadal's part to offer some updates to legacy controllers that incorporate features that the Haas guys seem to love.

I really don't think I should have to be writing macros all the time to do a lot of things that are really repetitive.

[ghyman]

*I'm holding my tongue on this one*

[DSL PWR]

For some jobs the mazatrol is a good system IF the POS control works. I just had a project done on an Integrex, and it took longer for the tech's to fix the control than it did to run the parts!

[fizzissist]

For some jobs the mazatrol is a good system IF the POS control works. I just had a project done on an Integrex, and it took longer for the tech's to fix the control than it did to run the parts!

Ok, so that batch of parts was relatively expensive. The good news is that for the next batch of parts, the tech's will already know how to fix it, so it'll be half the cost!!

...Which brings me to the question regarding service...
Under the heading of "If You Thought Fadal Service Was Bad, Where Do You Get a Mazak Tech For The Northern Nevada Area"????
The last one we got directly from Mazak was an outsourced 3rd party contractor who I'll NEVER have back in the shop.

[Billet Sean]

The last one we got directly from Mazak was an outsourced 3rd party contractor who I'll NEVER have back in the shop.

Don't you love it when you call the factory and they call someone else to come waste your time and money?! You'd think that a direct phone call to the manufacturer would solve your problem.... NOT!!! Went/still going through the same problem with Femco.

We only have Fadals for our VMC's and service in this area (Ohio) is very good... Once you know who to call (that's a given). We always use the same service guy and recommend him to everyone. Keith at K-Mac is very knowledgable on Fadals and offers "Free" phone support. Plus, he stocks almost any Fadal part. He doesn't do service calls anymore but has a few employees that do road trips.