Mazak opinions?

[marshal]

Anyone have thoughts on mazak machines?  We're looking at their quick turn series, as well as the VC-ez 20 mill.  Pretty much job shop work that can vary day by day, but nothing exotic....yet.  The control seems pretty cool, but I never seem to hear anything about them compared to like DMG or Doosan

[Tim Johnson]

We had a QT-15 a while ago. It was a nice machine. An Okuma, Mori or Doosan would be a better choice though.

[JParis]

We have a dozen of them, varying sizes, in our shop....they run and run and run....99% of all the programming is done on the floor at the control

Verticals we have 10 VCN-570's same thing....100% programmed offline....

Overall, better than a Haas or Chinese knock-off....the new controls come with many features standard...

[byte]

Anyone have thoughts on mazak machines?  We're looking at their quick turn series, as well as the VC-ez 20 mill.  Pretty much job shop work that can vary day by day, but nothing exotic....yet.  The control seems pretty cool, but I never seem to hear anything about them compared to like DMG or Doosan

Definitely a step up from Doosan, very reliable machines, I work for a shop doing heavy sst cutting only using Mazaks. the parts were quite oversize for the machines as well, no issues.

[Here's Johnny!]

[quote="Thee Byte™" post_id=9758 time=1618679246 user_id=50]

Anyone have thoughts on mazak machines?  We're looking at their quick turn series, as well as the VC-ez 20 mill.  Pretty much job shop work that can vary day by day, but nothing exotic....yet.  The control seems pretty cool, but I never seem to hear anything about them compared to like DMG or Doosan

Definitely a step up from Doosan, very reliable machines, I work for a shop doing heavy sst cutting only using Mazaks. the parts were quite oversize for the machines as well, no issues.
[/quote]

Not sure Mazak is a step up from Doosan.

[YoDoug]

One of the biggest things to consider is local support. In our area, Mazak is known for having very weak support. Customers often waiting a week or more to get a tech onsite to look at a down machine. DMG has a very bad rep as well. Okuma, Doosan, Nakamura, and Makino/Matsuura have a better rep for local support.

[marshal]

One of the biggest things to consider is local support. In our area, Mazak is known for having very weak support. Customers often waiting a week or more to get a tech onsite to look at a down machine. DMG has a very bad rep as well. Okuma, Doosan, Nakamura, and Makino/Matsuura have a better rep for local support.

He showed us the support line and the tech structure, which seemed pretty robust, and they're based just a couple hours from us.  Plus they have Mazak employees based out of their office as well.  I know there's half a dozen shops right by us that have Mazaks, but they've all got other brands as well.  

DMG apparently lost all their local techs when they went away from the reseller model, so they're all out of Chicago.  Doosan would be Ellison, which has an office in the same area as the Mazak guys, so they're not far either.

[byte]

One of the biggest things to consider is local support. In our area, Mazak is known for having very weak support. Customers often waiting a week or more to get a tech onsite to look at a down machine. DMG has a very bad rep as well. Okuma, Doosan, Nakamura, and Makino/Matsuura have a better rep for local support.

Just my opinion have used both extensively.

[Here's Johnny!]

[quote="Thee Byte™" post_id=9791 time=1618843112 user_id=50]

One of the biggest things to consider is local support. In our area, Mazak is known for having very weak support. Customers often waiting a week or more to get a tech onsite to look at a down machine. DMG has a very bad rep as well. Okuma, Doosan, Nakamura, and Makino/Matsuura have a better rep for local support.

Just my opinion have used both extensively.
[/quote]

 :_thumbup:

[TylerBeer]

Any suggestions for a small footprint high speed machine?  3d milling micarta parts, 12"x8" fixtures - I've suggested a Robodrilll or a Brother, would love hearing some other suggestions with someone running something

[YoDoug]

Any suggestions for a small footprint high speed machine?  3d milling micarta parts, 12"x8" fixtures - I've suggested a Robodrilll or a Brother, would love hearing some other suggestions with someone running something

I don't have a lot of experience with Brother, but the RoboDrills I have run were awesome machines. Been a while but the machines I ran had 31i controls with 24K rpm spindles with decent HP for milling. Very fast and accurate.

[Here's Johnny!]

I don't think you will get better than a Robodrill in small footprint and fast.

[TylerBeer]

That's what I was thinking, I've had limited but great experiences with them.  Thanks for the help!

[TylerBeer]

Forgot about the HAAS mini mill as well, I know that will get brought up because we have a VF3, but a this point the newer haas control is different enough I don't think it should be a limiting factor, might as well be a different machine. And for the money I would muuuch rather have the Fanuc / new fanuc control. I've heard great things about Brother machines for small format high speed - looked great at IMTS couple years ago

[Here's Johnny!]

Forgot about the HAAS mini mill as well, I know that will get brought up because we have a VF3, but a this point the newer haas control is different enough I don't think it should be a limiting factor, might as well be a different machine. And for the money I would muuuch rather have the Fanuc / new fanuc control. I've heard great things about Brother machines for small format high speed - looked great at IMTS couple years ago

I wouldn't compare a Haas anything to a Robodrill, a different class of machine altogether.

A nice small footprint machine is the Doosan DNM 4000 but I would still go for a Robodrill.

Just be careful if looking at used Robodrills or refurbished ones...some came with trunnions and them have riser blocks to lift the head up to clear the trunnion. If the trunnion has been removed the riser blocks could still be in places.