[pauldavid86]

Hello all and thank you for taking the time to read this. We are a small commercial cabinet company looking to move into CNC production. We mainly produce typical white melamine cabinets for medical field, and I am spending way too much time behind a saw. I have found what I think to be a great deal on a 2007 Cosmec Conquest 510 in good working order. The machine is still in production at a local shop and I think I can pick it up (with a large dust collector) for $14000. It would probably sit for a year or so as we ready our shop for three phase power (right now our other machines are running off of phase converters) Can anyone give me any advice? Is this a good machine? I am so lost by all of the different options and millions of pages on the internet.

[ger21]

Does Holzher still provide support, and do they have parts?
Will the current owner teach you how to operate it?

The biggest issue with 10+ year old machines is parts availability. Sometimes parts are nearly impossible to find, or incredibly expensive.

I'm not familiar with that machine, but that sounds like a good price, if it's in good condition.

[pauldavid86]

Thank you so much for commenting! I will be contacting holzher tomorrow to find out about parts and service (supposedly there is a local place that carries parts for this machine). I have a 2001 holzher edgebander that has been a great machine and I can still get parts reasonably. We haved saved thousands of dollars buying used machines through the years but a CNC router is a different level of technology than anything else we have. The current owner will probably not be able to help with teaching me as they are a very large commercial shop, and he may have hired someone to run it for him.It looks to be in great shape and he claims the reason for selling is they are purchasing a new machine with automatic unloading capability. I know I will have to purchase a software package and spend quite some time learning how to use it , they currently use cabinet vision. He has invited me to his shop to see it run, and it will be running there until the new machine arrives nearly next year. It is not critical that it be in production immediately ( it may quite possibly be a year or more). This machine has a 10 HP spindle, 14 hp suction for the table and 7.5hp vacuum system with 3 collectors. It also has 6 spindle line boring. There are a few local CNC shops I have tried to talk to for advice but no one wants to tell you anything, they just say "you should just hire us to cut your parts" lol, no thanks.

[ger21]

Learning how to use the machine may be the biggest issue. I doubt that Holzher will offer any training on an old machine, and finding anyone to train you may be very difficult, if not impossible.
You can probably figure out the basics, but you may not be able to take full advantage of the machine without showing you.

How many employees do you have. We're a small shop, but have found that a $100K+ machine easily pays for itself.

[pauldavid86]

I called holzher today and they tell me parts are still available (but some of them have a 4 week lead time) and they still service them. I will definitely call back and see if there is any possibility of them offering training. There are only 3 of us working right now and we are not looking to grow much larger. I am going to see the machine run on saturday and I guess it would be wise to ask who set the machine up for them. (They bought it used as well) It would definitely be worth paying their operator to come help us in learning the operation. I would probably have the opportunity to spend a couple days working with them as they are using the machine until the new one comes in January. We Are able to pay cash for the machine since it is so inexpensive, and the thought of a 100k machine terrifies me. (mainly because in 2008 when the economy was terrible the only thing that saved us was all of our machinery being paid for) Things are great right now but I know we will see a slowdown in the next 2 years.

[ger21]

OK, for a 3 man shop, I'd say go for it, if it's currently working, and there don't appear to be any issues with it.

[pauldavid86]

Im going to check it out tomorrow. I will definitely let yo know what we decide. Thank you!

[pauldavid86]

We went to check out the machine today, and I must say it was impressive. We ran a few sheets for a current project they are working on, and the machine looks to be very well maintained. I am definitely interested in purchasing it ,but man I underestimated the size! It is capable of cutting 5 x 10' sheets, and the machine is about 7.5' by about 18'. (I was thinking it would be closer to 6 x 12.) That's not including the massive vacuum pumps and the 3 bag dust collection system. I really think it is a great buy, but I am concerned about the amount of space it will take up, we are not ready to move to a new location, we have 20 years of junk in our shop lol. I definitely have some thinking to do over the next few days. It seems like to any entry level machine is 30 k and they don't even have line boring spindles. Any suggestions for other machines I should look at?

[ger21]

Any suggestions for other machines I should look at?

I'd try to find the room, if possible. There are lots of good deals on old used machines, but you need to be careful, as you can easily buy a boat anchor.
But I don't think you'll find a better deal.

We have a 2007 Morbidelli 5x12, and have been told we could get $60K-$70K for it. (A similar new one is $150K-$180K)

[pauldavid86]

I've talked to few good friends in the industry and they pretty much said the same thing, try to find room for it. It would definitely take our shop to the next level once in production. I know it will fit but we will have to rearrange the entire shop, I guess there is no time like the present lol. What software are you using for design?

[ger21]

I use AutoCAD, and a custom macro I wrote to generate cabinet parts. We use AlphaCAM for toolpaths and nesting.