Any of you guys have experience with Fermat?

[g-coder05]

Although I more than likely will never have the work nor the money to afford one of these beast but she sure is nice. Nothing like a 5X gantry that can mill, turn, laser harden and surface grind all in one.

Their Horizontals look quite nice as well. Who wouldn't want an air conditioned totally enclosed operators cabin? And a windows 10 Fanuc control with a 21.5" touchscreen control???

 

[Doug]

"Who wouldn't want one ?"

Me, because of having the stress of making that machine justify it's purchase....

 

[Jashley73]

Those are pretty cool.

And it's about F'n time that someone started using an off-the-shelf robot as a tool-changer, instead of some massively complex & difficult to fix long-term contraption.

 

[lobust]

Those are pretty cool.

And it's about F'n time that someone started using an off-the-shelf robot as a tool-changer, instead of some massively complex & difficult to fix long-term contraption.

Robots as tool changers aren't all that uncommon, a localish shop here had an accuracer millturn with a kuka robot pushing 10 years ago.

Edit: Like this:

 

[Vancbiker]

I’ve looked at Fermat HBMs. Super stout castings, ways, and screws. Only builder I’ve seen that made a more robust appearing HBM than Kuraki. Ended up buying another Kuraki though. I’ve never had very good experiences with Euro control support in the states and at the time they only offered Siemens and Heidenhain. Since a 2.5-3 meter travel HBM was considered a 20+ year investment, control parts and support was a critical consideration. Interesting that they offer Fanuc now.

 

[SD&M]

Wow-check out that gun drill (or boring tool?)!

 

[machinery_e]

Laser hardening on a machining center-wow, that is interesting-was not aware of it, reading up on it.

Similar to Vancbiker's thoughts, I've personally had a bad experience with Euro electronics compared to Japanese. I bought a late 1980's Euro machine with a Fanuc 0 control. After I bought it and opened the electric cabinet I was horrified to see it was filled with oddball Euro electronics no longer supported-only thing Fanuc was the control, all the drives/servos were Euro made. Would be interesting if the Fermat with a Fanuc is all Fanuc or just a Fanuc control.

 

[Vancbiker]

I was horrified to see it was filled with oddball Euro electronics no longer supported-only thing Fanuc was the control, all the drives/servos were Euro made. Would be interesting if the Fermat with a Fanuc is all Fanuc or just a Fanuc control.

AFAIK, there is no practical way now to build a bastard hybrid of Fanuc control and 3rd party drives. Since the control and drives communicate on a proprietary Fanuc data bus, it seems very unlikely that it’s a mashup.