Hello all,

I have decided to document my experience (for others) in purchasing a machine from an overseas company and include all information from initial contact straight through to having the machine in use and running making parts.

To start, a little history... like many others I began with a small G0704 which I quickly converted to cnc and almost as quickly outgrew. I decided to go with something bigger and more geared towards light production capability. The options as you all know are limited at best and come with a variety of hurdles. I looked at the Novakon and Tormach but ultimately I knew these would not be the step up I wanted to take and the prices were hard to stomach for such a small machine. They certainly have their place, just not in my shop.

So I turned to looking at comparably priced used Machining centers. While these certainly were capable of my machining goals, they also have their own set of issues. For one the gap between hobby and industrial machines goes from John boat to battle ship with very little in between. I didn't want to deal with a 15k lb behemoth and being restricted to Rotary phase converter power output, spindle horsepower needed to stay reasonable.

So I set my sights on smaller vmc's such as the Fadal 3016, TRM, etc.. but the pricing on these was still higher than my set budget and when I ran across machines in my budget they looked completely abused and unmaintained and I didn't want to be Doritos with hefty reissue build making my investment much higher then anticipated.

So I continued my search. All the while my G0704 was requiring more work to keep running then it was worth. So I knew I needed to make a decision and soon.

I expanded my search to overseas companies to see if any new machines were being released that would fill the gap. As luck had it I found Tengzhou Runfa machinery company and a very well spoken customer service rep named Fred Lee. He and I spoke at length for a few weeks on a machine bigger then the Tormach/Novakon, but not quite vmc sized. The only issue was the travels were a bit small for my goals. No problem he said we can customize it. So I thought great, affordable, new and customizable. Well, after working with their engineers we decided it wasn't a good idea to try and push the machine out as far as I needed, but they were in their second revision of a new product that may better suit my needs. They sent me a picture and I immediately thought... this will be out of my budget.. picture below:



After some soul searching on my end, I started adding up time lost in building an enclosure for the smaller machine, tool changer added on, and costs of upgrading an initially cheaper machine to get what I wanted and decided it wouldn't be any cheaper and decided to go with a machine closer to being ready to go. So we worked out pricing and to my surprise it was much more reasonable then I anticipated it being.

I opted to have them ship it CIF (Cost Insurance Freight) in which they pay for all costs for it to be delivered to my port of choice in the USA and they have responsibility for it arriving in good shape. I did a ton of research on costs to bring it into the country and my research arrived at the costs being around $900 for taxes and import duties for this type of machine. For those interested there are specific fees and percentages charged for various machine types and a VMC is one of them making calculating the import costs relatively simple. There is always the chance I missed something.. (hopefully not as I import other products regularly and know my way around the process very well. However, If I did, It will certainly be part of my review and information supplied here.)

For my machine, I knew I would be upgrading to a 4th and 5th axis down the road, and I wanted a control system that was programmable. I chose LinuxCNC for it's excellent performance ease of use and expandability.

The machine will be shipped with all electrical installed except the actual control box. They will install all motors, drives, ATC, auto oiler coolant system etc and leave all leads to the controller unterminated, tagged and clearly labeled for easy installation of the LinuxCNC controller hardware.

Spec's for the machine are as follows:

- Linear rail machine 35mm rails
- P4 ground double nut ball screws
- Counter balanced head

- Travels:

X - 28"
Y - 15"
Z - 18" (4" - 22" spindle to table range)

- Table size 40" x 12"

-BT30 6000rpm ATC spindle (BT40 is standard but i opted for the 30 taper for tooling costs being more reasonable)

- Motor Power Ratings

Spindle - 7.5hp spindle servo 6000rpm with rigid tap capability

X & Y - 1.8kw, 6 N.m 110mm frame servos

Z - 1.5kw, 10 N.m 130mm frame servo

- Full Enclosure with food coolant

- Machine weight 3900lbs

- Automatic lubrication system

- Stainless way covers

- 0.0005" Positioning accuracy

- 0.0003" Repeat accuracy

(These are worst scenario figures. And can likely be made better with screw mapping and backlash comp in Linux CNC)

- 230v 3 Phase power required (25hp rotary phase converter required if single phase is all you have available)


So I'm sure I'm leaving out information, but please ask if you have specific questions on something or if I missed listing something.

After pulling the trigger, I sent a 30% deposit via bank wire to fulfill the proforma invoice acceptance for them to begin the machine build. I was quoted 30 days from the date the deposit funds cleared to the ship date. I held this up by ordering motors and drives from a company there to bed installed since the machine company only installs complete GSK motors, drives and control systems and the GSK drives are surviving to there control system. So they are currently waiting on the motors to go further with the build before installing the guards.

The transit time was quoted at 40 days to my port of choice.

.......Tooling.....

I also ordered a complete tooling package (from a separate company) with two 6" vices, 48 BT30 tool holders of various types, 48 tool bt30 tool cart with tool tightening fixture, 60 various size er collets, 8" rotary table and a few other odds and ends.. being they can all ship with the machine, it's like free freight. Another plus for my decision in my opinion.

So to date, I am at the beginning of week 4 of the build and my customer service rep Fred Lee is readily available via Skype every evening starting at 8pm est and is always quick to reply with a friendly greeting. He has been emailing me weekly progress update pictures which I will share in subsequent posts below. To date I am still very pleased with my decision and wanted to share this experience with others who had not considered this path due to a lack of information and stifling fear of the unknown. It was a relatively simple process so far. The big questions will be answered in the near future when the machine arrives and I can physically inspect it and run it and of course logistically after all of the customs clearance is completed and accrued fees settled.

So I will leave this small novel here and post pictures of the build directly!

Thanks all!

Chris

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