[jreynolds5]

My company is looking to purchase our first swiss machine. We are looking at the Citizens L20 XII and the Star SR-20RIV. These are both fully loaded machines with a programmable B axis. We have seen both of these machines in person running our own parts. For all intensive purposes these machines are the same.

We run a lot of tight tolerance parts... +-.00025, and one of our concerns is being able to restart a process. We know it is not feasible on long parts or going back multiple processes. I know that the Star has a restart feature built in but we were told by our Citizens rep that in order to do any type of mid program restart you have to program in macros. I don't see this as too big of a problem for myself, as I am the one who is going to be handling this machine to begin with. My bosses concern is when we go to put anyone else on the machine down the roads. We have a tendency to hire guys that can handle complex programming or programming at all really as we are a mostly Mazak shop with 2 Okuma MTMs that I am in charge of. So I guess basically ease of operation.

The other big thing is service and support for both the machines in the Metro Detroit area, I ould like to know some personal experiences from others not recommended by the distributor. The distributors are Addy Machine for the Star and Dynamic for the Citizens.

This is our first Swiss purchase but we plan to add more and we just want want is going to be easiest to train others to run and setup.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[ProProcess]

I am a Citizen shop <not in Michigan> that has never run Star machine.
Citizen nationally is supported extremely well with many of their distributors having people that have been in place for decades.
As well, I believe that Citizen's spare/replacement parts inventory is many times larger than Star's - though I would ask that question yourself as I may be operating on dated information.
Down-time because of a part being out of stock is VERY costly.
In my case and most all others that I've talked to at national trade shows - the local support is very, very good.
I would ask the question about tenure - how long have people worked at the distributor's firms. That says a lot about the company.
Too, they should not hesitate to let you speak to a select number of local users that can provide some real-world, real-time feedback on how well the support is provided.

As far as the "restart" feature is concerned, I've never understood this one.
A swiss process involves the Guide Busing - how can you...

• Turn a part
• Stop the process
• Measure the part
• Make an offset
• Re-turn the part - now, without the guidebushing!

Those are my thoughts - hope they were helpful.
Good luck with your decision.

[jreynolds5]

We have been told by both Star and Citizen that they both have great stocks of parts and if we get a part order in by 4 we can get most any part the next day.

As far as the restart feature. I understand that it is not ideal but it is something my company is kind of hung up on....NO SCRAP...lol We also are not looking to run a swiss in the 'typical' fashion...as in making large quanity production runs. The plan is to do quantities of a few hundred or less. It is that they are small parts. Star does have a last process ran restart feature. They said as long as your part length is not too long then you can rerun lets say the od or a thread much like you would a standard MTM.

And we have contacted other customers they had told us to contact......of course they all give rave reviews...lmao

[ProProcess]

..of course they all give rave reviews...lmao

I know right!

Are any of the shops you talked to companies that have both machines on the floor?
If not, I would see if either builder could provide you with companies that have both machine types on their floor.
The other determining factor would be your shop culture and control preference.
That is to say if your shop is predominantly one control type, some or most are going to "hate" running the one that is different.
Good luck!

[jreynolds5]

There in lies another issue. I am the only G&M code programmer in the shop. I am in charge of our 2 Okumas and everthing else is Mazatrol. The talent pool her is quite shallow. We have a guy or 2 who can copy and paste on our LB300 and get by but they have to get me for anything somewhat complex

[MCImes]

I have ran Citizen and Tsugami, not star, but both Star and Tsugami use Fanuc controls and are nearly the same in terms of programing.

It is correct that Citizen cannot start mid-program and you must use Macros and GOTO's like IF[#500EQ1]GOTO501 to skip around the program

With a Fanuc machine like Tsugami or Star, you can select the line to start from on both paths, then press start and begin from an arbitrary location. There are some limitations with this, like you cant start inside a Sync or Superimposition mode, because the control obviously wouldnt know where it is or what is sync'd.

For longer running jobs that justify more programming time, the Citizen / GOTO method isn't bad. For one-off, job shop, or short run parts, starting from the middle of the program is a handy feature.

Im not from the area so cant comment on those distributors. Citizen and Tsugami have had most of the parts I've needed in stock. I cant comment about Star.

[jreynolds5]

Thanks MCImes. Any machine I have ever ran you can restart at the beginning of a process. Like I said, i am not concerned with macros or GOTO statements, its my companies concern with being able to place other people besides me on themachine and them not being able to easily miss something and crash it. For instance we have a part on our Okuma LB3000 that requires some turning and threading then we bump stop it out a few more inches and do wrench flats. Our night shift operator for got to take the part out and went to do the first bump stop and crashed into the part at full rapid.......knocked x and z out .040 and .050 and now the machine is down.......the guy has been on this machine for over 2 years!

[DCogswell]

jreynolds, If you're looking for true flexibility in set-up & program development, the best choice is going to be Nomura with the Mitsubishi M70 control. You can start mid-program with the Nomura's. Also, while you're in the program, you can jog the axis and then continue with the program. You can even edit on-the-fly, then continue with the program.

If you've shop has a high-mix & low volume product demands then the best choice is going to be Nomura. And when it comes to B-axis, the Nomura 32YB2-XB is the top in the industry. Here's a link to a video of the machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRzHqe9P4uI

[jreynolds5]

Well unfortunately my company does not want to buy a machine larger than a 20mm as of right now. We had originally looked into Nomura mainly due to the fact that we have a relationship with Gosiger already. But wanting a b axis machine in a 20 mm put a halt on looking a Nomura. At this point in time my boss is currently working on writing the proposal for the Citizen to submit to the higher ups. Thank you everyone for your thoughts.

[DCogswell]

Just for the sake of due diligence ( and to keep the Citizen dealer honest) I would get a quote for the Nomura 32XB and compare.

The only thing you lose when going from 32 to 20mm is Main/sub spindle RPM. You can still use smaller collets & guides. And the machine is convertible between guide bushing mode & chucker kit.

And depending on your time frame, Nomura will have a 20mm with a "double" B-axis configuration. You'll have B-axis on the main and a separate B-axis on the sub. This will be available in Q3/Q4 of this year.

[gizmo_454]

jreynolds, While I do not have any Stars in the building, I do have some Citizens and a Tsugami. While I like the ability the Tsugami gives me to restart in the middle of the program, service does not stand up to the Citizen. They all talk the talk, but Citizen walks the walk. My shop is located in Michigan, but on the other side of Michigan. I deal with Millennium instead of Dynamic, although, I should say, I deal with them when necessary which is usually only for parts. Most of the time, I call Citizen directly. Our first Citizen was almost 17 years old when we bought it. We didn't know a thing about it, other than what we could read in the manuals. The guys at Citizen helped me many times troubleshooting problems both in the code, and mechanical/electrical over the phone. In my opinion, their support is second to none.

Later, down the road, we purchased the Tsugami new, and what a nightmare! Only 1 or 2 guys in the office to help with applications support, and you have to call the service guy out on the road trying to get a service guy because there is hardly anyone in the office. I am half tempted to sell the Tsugami we have and replace it with a Citizen. Everything works, and the support is spectacular! If I had to do it all over again, I would buy the Citizen!

As far as your comment about short run production... I do some of that, so long as I have enough different parts in the same family to run at one time. Depending on the parts you deal with, if they are complex parts, most of the time it is hardly worth it to run them on a swiss in the quantities you mentioned above. Let me re-phrase that, the customer won't want to pay for it. If you are going to a different size material, you can pretty much plan on somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes just to change out the collets and guide bushing. Then, if you are going to a different channel set in the barfeed, you can count on another 20 to 30 minutes to change out the set and spindle liner. You now have an hour into setup and you haven't even started putting tools in the machine! And DCogswell mentioned the changeover from guide bushing to guide bushingless...HA HA HA!!! That's an easy 1 to 2 hours by the time you are done...and oh yes, you better make sure you get a barfeed that is capable of that! For a simple changeover, you would be looking at maybe 45 minutes to an hour. For a complex changeover, you might be looking at 4 to 8 hours before you are making production parts. I have one right now that I am working on. I am working on day 3 and still haven't got the machine making parts! Mostly because it is in our Tsugami and I am fighting a programming problem that it took the engineers at Tsugami 2 days to figure out what the solution was! Again, I wish it had been a Citizen. The job would have been done already!!!

Sorry I cannot help you on the Star front. Good luck in your hunting!

[Dualkit]

I have two Stars sitting on my shop floor right now, their service could not possibly be worse. Ordering parts from them is like pulling teeth. They will also want ridiculous prices for things that make it worth while to spend hours matching up belt, bearings, & common items to buy them elsewhere. Before becoming self employed decades ago I worked at places that called out their service techs, most were completely lost and on a cell phone to the home office constantly, they work slow and charge for all their time. That hasn't changed as I know guys who work for places where they still call out Star Techs. If you need tech support by phone you will never get a hold of anyone worth a crap because the smart office guys are constantly supporting the dummies out in the field, not customers calling in.
A phone call will most likely get you someone reading from a book that would not know a Star SR-20 from a pizza oven.

[jreynolds5]

Well we make parts only for ourselves.....and we try to run as much as many jobs for the size of material at once as possible. And as long as our higher ups don't change what we want we have chose the Citizens. We are getting an l20 XII. And we had both Citizen and star do run offs on a couple of our parts and do a change over while we were there. Granted it was just a collet and guide bushing change but it did not seem too bad. And the citizen was running one of our parts in less than a third of the time we run them on one of our integrex's

[DCogswell]

Gizmo, I don't think the Citizens have a convertible guide bushing/chucker option. So, you may be thinking of something else to change over when thinking it may take 1-2 hours.

For the Nomura, it's just 7 bolts to take off and back on. 4 socket heads for the RGB & 3 socket heads for the RGB drive unit. There's no settings to change and It takes 20 minutes at the most.

Depending on the model of your Tsugami, it may take a little longer because of the sheet metal change and pulling out the DD-RGB when going to chucker mode. And change keep relay for Z axis limits to be changed.

When it comes to mid-tape restart, you're free to do whatever you want on the Nomura with the Mitsubishi control. Star/Tsugami/Ganesh/Hanwha, there is some limited ability for mid-tape restart. Due to the Citizens overlay (mits control) you'll need macros to get going mid-tape. However, any Swiss machine where you want to start in the middle of a program requires an experienced programmer/set-up person.

And again, with any Swiss-type, the more prepared you are and the more experience you have, will result in reducing set-up times.

[jreynolds5]

The citizens does have a chucker option.

[chunkymonkey]

DCogswell, I can't believe it took me this long to figure out who you are....Then, the Nomura pitch and BAM!!! We have actually worked together, i believe. Nomura is a great machine with restart capabilities, however, with any machine, you have to do it correctly. With swiss machines all being multi-channel machines, there will always be a way for a noob to screw it up.

Citizen requires macros, and well thought out ones to boot.

The rest have a function, but you must always keep all the sync codes in mind. If you miss.....crashy crashy boom boom boom....if you have safety switches off.

[jreynolds5]

I do have experience with wait/sync codes and programming macros so I do not see that being a problem. I would be interested in seeing the Nomura in action, but unfortunately my boss is not interested at this time.....we have spent a lot of time researching and he just wants this to be done....lol Maybe Nomura will have some thing set up at IMTS. Thanks again for the feedback.

[chunkymonkey]

Nomura does have their swiss line at IMTS in the Gosiger booth. They are well built. The Mits control will be like the traditional ones, not the UI that you see on Citizens. Citizen does their own UI. I have been on most brands of swiss over the last 15 years, so if you need any help, let me know.

[jreynolds5]

Being that you have been on most swiss brands what one is you r preference?

[chunkymonkey]

I mostly do orthopaedic work, so Citizen is my preffered. I have a turret for the bigger cuts to do pinch turning/milling. Citizen is great for intricate parts. However, i really feel Nomura is better built. No turret, however they are a more rigid machine. They both have Mits controls, so the macro programming is faster, imo, and the control understands the order of operations without needing brackets for everything.