We have been using EMCO lathes, both manual and CNC for many years.

Our manual lathe has never required any service, apart from what we normally do to keep it running.

Our first CNC lathe did require quite a bit of serving it’s 20 years life.

Mainly electronics.

The original one had a 3.5 inch floppy system.

Eventually that became unworkable, and we replaced the whole control system that used a CF card.


Another funny thing happened here.

The system can only support CF cards up to 16 GB.

We couldn’t find any locally, as the smallest available was 64GB!

Amazon came to the rescue.

I ordered 6.

And two weeks later got a package of 60!

All for roughly $25!!??

Then the drive controllers started playing up.

During this time, I had to call EMCO service in Austria for help.

The gentleman I talked it is the same person from day one.

If he was not available when I called, he always called back.

We would spend sometimes over an hour on the phone.

He never complained.

And it was always free of charge!

This is the sort of service one only dreams about.

If we needed any part, it was always dispatched the same day.

What is that level of customer support worth??? It's so rare to find these days, but when you do, you never forget and you always want to return, long after you've forgotten how much you paid for the product originally.

I used to install voip and other phone systems. I had a tech at NEC that was just like you describe. Even gave me his direct line to get around the queue. Never abused the privilege but that guy helped me any possible way he could over the years. Was very sad when he retired.

After about 7yrs Haas no longer has much support, and the $120/hr tech doesn't want to work on it. Obsolete!

Wow, it's 20 years old and it would read a 16GB CF card?

I ran a 2016 Doosan machining center that we had to search high and low across all of earth for a 256 MB card.... because that is all the FANUC control would read. Mind you this is a ~$150k piece of industrial equipment.

My Human hand, eye, and brain (HHEB) controlled Bridgeport still works fine after 40 years; no support or upgrades needed.

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
My Human hand, eye, and brain (HHEB) controlled Bridgeport still works fine after 40 years; no support or upgrades needed.

I had a Bridgeport milling machine.

It had a digital readout, controlled by a computer.

Even the computer conked out.

Bridgeport didn’t have a replacement.

But, I managed to get one that worked.

We still have working in another workshop.

It was big, and we needed the space.

Replaced it by a Chinese model under an American company.

Worked but was not steady enough.

Gave it away.

Got a very good German model.

It is brand new so I hope for a few years of faultless performance.