I am expecting to be doing a lot more turning work this year because of some new products we have that are taking off.
Right now I have a 4-axis slant-bed lathe, but I am still loading/unloading parts and I am doing 2 operations on the lathe and one or more operations on the mill.
I am looking into a lathe with a sub-spindle and live tooling. I need the live tooling to be able to machine on the main spindle and the sub spindle, and the live tooling has to be able to tap on both spindles.
The parts range from about 1/4" diamater up to around 2" diameter, max about 3" long, almost all 6061 aluminum, very occasionally brass, or steel/stainless. I'd prefer around 2.5" bar capacity, and I want to use it with a bar feeder. The idea is to be able to set up the machine so I can walk away and just let it run on it's own and come back to a pile of parts. I want a chip auger and tool presetter also and some mechanism to easily transfer programs from the network to the control (USB, hard drive, network, whatever). I just don't want to be drip feeding or some such.
I work next to a guy who bought 2 Mori Seikis about two years ago... with live tooling, bar feeder, everything I want... they were 1999 model machines and he paid around $80k each including the bar feeder. That's around the price range I am looking at.
I've hard bad things about some brands like Daewoo. I've priced out a new Haas and it's around $160k (or more). I prefer a slightly used machine, and I'd like to spend around $50k-85k max.
I am not looking to purchase right away, probably this summer, but I'd like some feedback on what machines to look at. Any opinions?