[bones]

Hi,
I was wondering if anybody is running Mach 3 with at Smithy 1240cnc?
I would like to get a copy of the config file for it.
It is running a PMDX-110 board.

I purchased on for my boss and are less that impressed wih it.
Review to come, So are the missing screws and parts.

Rod

[smallblock]

Bones,
Was your machine shipped direct to you from China? Its hard to believe they would ship a machine from USA to Australia and not fully test it first.

[bones]

Hi,
Oh no I organised it from Australia as I was coming over to set it up and train some guys hereto use it.
It was bought by an American company and with American dollars.
To be used in America.

So here is the review so far.

Got a quote easy enough And had some techical question.
Thats where the issues started.

After a few games of email tennis trying to get info etc.
I ended up ordering the machine. Bad idea.
I should of known by the lack of responce to email's there would be issues.

Well the machine finally got delivered, with a few delays because of miss spelt email names on thier part.
And I turn up in the US.

Here is the list! Missing!

*2 sets of bolts to mount the stepper motors.
*missing bolts to mount the coolant trays.
*Still no manual about coolant tray installation after repeated email and phone calls.
*No coolant. Was told it did come with it and found out it didn't.
*Dial Gauge------haha hiding the inaccuacys of the machine.

So they are sending the parts. Still no sign yet. Been here a week now.

Now to get the machine running.
It will not communicate with Mach3 on a working machine.
Estop is aways on etc
I look inside to find the large plate that hold the 600W (heavy) tranformer wasn't bolted in and had lodged itself on the stand off's it was supose to bolt too.
One of the wire on gecko output was pulled out. probably because of this.
Quality there.
And to top it all off the bloody Parallel cable they sent isn't a parallel cable but one of those old transfer Lantastic cables.

AND.......
The first Mach 3 they sent me wa wrong. The second one wasn't even setup at all.

Conclusion:
Smithy would have to be the worst company I have ever had to deal with.
Thier quality of the CNC boxes are Crap. Note! the Geckos and PMDX boards are great and they were very helpful with info.
The machines are chinese. Say no more. It actally seems ok.

But the lack of support and knowledge of the guys at Smithy is bad. really bad.

I wish I bought a Tormach now.

Rod

[smallblock]

Bones,
Any progress on the problems and missing parts?

[bones]

Hi Smallblock,
No nothing. Over a week now. Post doesn't take that long in the US.
I emailed him yesterday (Kerry that is) and no responce.
And he is VP of Sales and Technical Support.
This would have to be the worst company I have delt with ever.
Total lack of QA and technical help.
You would think they would embrace Mach3 and not goto a linux based system. Well at least support it.

Now I know why there isn't much information on smithy on the web.
I would of got better support if I bought it directly from china!

If you wonder why the US economy is in such a state, It's because of companies like this.
They have cost me days of work and my boss money! American dollars!

Should of gone a IH or Tormach.

[sharpshooter90]

That almost sounds like the result of having a bunch of PhD's running the show. These guys have a tendency to live in an insulated world of their own. I read some resume's on the Smithy site, and it appears that they all shuffled from one car company to another- the state of our automotive industry says a lot about that, and it looks like Smithy ended up with some of the driftwood. I have some experience with top-heavy organizations from my military experience. I must grudgingly give credit to the Japs for the way they run things. They have a culture which respects the line workers as much as the executives, and as a result, design innovations and improvements usually come from the bottom up, with the PhD types doing the details of the implementation.

[cyclestart]

bones

Wow ! Unfortunately shoddy assembly sometimes happens regardless of country of manufacture. Lousy after sales service is another matter. That's never excusable

That almost sounds like the result of having a bunch of PhD's running the show. These guys have a tendency to live in an insulated world of their own. I read some resume's on the Smithy site, and it appears that they all shuffled from one car company to another- the state of our automotive industry says a lot about that, and it looks like Smithy ended up with some of the driftwood. I have some experience with top-heavy organizations from my military experience. I must grudgingly give credit to the Japs for the way they run things. They have a culture which respects the line workers as much as the executives, and as a result, design innovations and improvements usually come from the bottom up, with the PhD types doing the details of the implementation.

Take that list of employees with a grain of salt. I recognize one of those names and strongly suspect he has little to do with day-to-day operations. On the payroll as an advisor and occasional visitor more likely.

BUT... I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment. The 'masters and peons' attitude has gone a long way to put North American manufacturing in the mess it's in. It might have worked for a hands-on guy like Henry Ford but the world has moved on. The 'we' attitude is strong in Japanese corporate culture.

[smallblock]

Bones,
Any progress on getting the machine working? Did they ever call you back?

[bones]

Hi,
Yes I got through to the Managing director and we have worked through the issues and with another guy who has his head screwed on.

The machine is running and it is good. Really nice. Well one issue being fixed currently, but all good there.

It has just come down to lazyness on checking items to be packed/shipped.
And some quality control within testing.
And responce to issues initally.

It is a well put together system in the whole.
Just needs some of those finishing touches, which I'm told are being done buy the guy helping with the issues.

Rod

[AirChunk]

I have a cnc 1240 , but not with mach3. With EMC and BCC. I just started demoing the Synergy stuff from Webber , and so far I like the Synergy .

[smallblock]

Bones,
That's good news. I think that Kerry ( Ballard ? ) is one of the original founders of the company. Maybe success got to his head and he lost touch with his clients. At least your message got through to someone and they did some butt kicking. With Tormach and Syil in the mix, they will need to make sure every machine going out the door is ready to run.

[norvil1]

Hi,
Oh no I organised it from Australia as I was coming over to set it up and train some guys hereto use it.
It was bought by an American company and with American dollars.
To be used in America.

So here is the review so far.

Got a quote easy enough And had some techical question.
Thats where the issues started.

After a few games of email tennis trying to get info etc.
I ended up ordering the machine. Bad idea.
I should of known by the lack of responce to email's there would be issues.

Well the machine finally got delivered, with a few delays because of miss spelt email names on thier part.
And I turn up in the US.

Here is the list! Missing!

*2 sets of bolts to mount the stepper motors.
*missing bolts to mount the coolant trays.
*Still no manual about coolant tray installation after repeated email and phone calls.
*No coolant. Was told it did come with it and found out it didn't.
*Dial Gauge------haha hiding the inaccuacys of the machine.

So they are sending the parts. Still no sign yet. Been here a week now.

Now to get the machine running.
It will not communicate with Mach3 on a working machine.
Estop is aways on etc
I look inside to find the large plate that hold the 600W (heavy) tranformer wasn't bolted in and had lodged itself on the stand off's it was supose to bolt too.
One of the wire on gecko output was pulled out. probably because of this.
Quality there.
And to top it all off the bloody Parallel cable they sent isn't a parallel cable but one of those old transfer Lantastic cables.

AND.......
The first Mach 3 they sent me wa wrong. The second one wasn't even setup at all.

Conclusion:
Smithy would have to be the worst company I have ever had to deal with.
Thier quality of the CNC boxes are Crap. Note! the Geckos and PMDX boards are great and they were very helpful with info.
The machines are chinese. Say no more. It actally seems ok.

But the lack of support and knowledge of the guys at Smithy is bad. really bad.

I wish I bought a Tormach now.

Rod

if you think that bad then you have never done businesse with john taylor at shoptask. and your are right , you should have bought a tormach.

[bones]

The actual machine itself is ok. No problems there with the chinese part.
It runs nice and smooth.
All the missing parts and other issues have been resolved very quickly.
I will be giving them a list of the issues I have had and other fixes to make the machine spot on.
Things like easier to clean swarf, a second drain hole etc.
Hopefully they take some of them into consideration.

We will be buying another machine direct from the factory in china and ship to Australia.
Identical system except for a chinese driver box instead of the US one with US parts.
I've found the chinese drivers to be very good for steppers.
But we will be ripping off the steppers and fitting servo's.

The machine is huge and has a great working area.

Rodney

[sharpshooter90]

Rodney,
Looks like you have turned a very negative first impression into a positive result. With some constructive dialogue, most people can resolve almost any issue. Of course, being a skilled machinist means you could repair any defect yourself if need be.

[bones]

Hi,
Thats right, But if I wasn't and electronics person, knew cnc machines, electrician, fault finder etc the machine would still be sittting there.
Mind you one of the guys there is extreemly knowledgable on the system.

I'm working 12-15 hour days to catchup on the work eg time lost fixing the machine.
But all good now and it's working. Not 100% yet but running.
I need to get time to fit new drivers, For some reason the gecko's seem to be not coming out of the reduced current mode. Very weird.
But will fit them soon and crank up voltage to them and see how quick this baby can run.

Rod

[GMFAB]

if you think that bad then you have never done businesse with john taylor at shoptask. and your are right , you should have bought a tormach.

I Own two Smithy's and have had nothing but GOOD things to say about there after sale service .( A 3-1 and a 1240 cnc)

[bones]

Do you have Smithy CNC machines?

The machine itself is great. The chinese part of the machine is fine.
It is all the American parts.
The used their own control box. It was the wiring of the box and a wrong cable that was the issue, missing parts and having to hound people to get anybody to talk to me or know anything about it.

I would buy one of these machines again but directly from the factory in china.
Same machine they sell for $10000 is $6800 from china.

rod

[sharpshooter90]

I would buy one of these machines again but directly from the factory in china.
Same machine they sell for $10000 is $6800 from china.

rod

That is going to be the wave of the future. Most of the US companies rely on contracts to maintain some sort of exclusivity. These contracts require minimum annual purchases. As the economy drops sales below this level, the Chinese will be within their rights to sell direct. The Chinese economy is crashing as well and the central government is offerring tax rebates to companies that export goods. With some negotiating, you could probably get a machine direct for 50% of the USA price. Syil is already selling their machines direct from their website.

[bones]

That Price was November last year.
The chinese will sell to who ever, even if they have an exclusive buyer.
Because there is no such thing as a exclusive buyer to china.
We bought machines direct from Seig years ago.
I might have to check the price again.

Rod

[sharpshooter90]

That Price was November last year.
The chinese will sell to who ever, even if they have an exclusive buyer.
Because there is no such thing as a exclusive buyer to china.
We bought machines direct from Seig years ago.
I might have to check the price again.

Rod

Its interesting how things cycle around. From what I read, Smithy got their start as a dealer for someone else and then went around them direct to the Chinese themselves. Now some of their former people have done the same and set up shop under various names.