Opinions on Kitamura Mycenter 5X?

[Garwood]

Looking at an early 2000's fixer machine W 16i Fanuc. If I get it, it will be to keep, not flip.

What I have noticed so far-

Double arm toolchanger is kinda slow

Chip control looks like it sucks.

Searching around these Kit verticals are not very expensive. Like dealers asking less than $20k. Suggests to me they are undesirable. Anyone know why?

Spindle shop says they do a lot of these. Spindle overhaul was estimated at $7k without chrome/grinding. That doesn't strike me as terrible for 50 taper 10K. It's made it 20 years in toolsteel so far.

 

[Herding Cats]

While I have no direct experience with them I have looked at smaller ones a fair bit on the internet. When they have a 16i the feed rate is generally specced at the same as the rapids. This would suggest to me that they have some high speed options, maybe even a 64 bit RISC engine. Pop the door open on the right side of the control behind the display and look for a card with a number something like A20B-8100-0170 or 0171.

Yes I know those part numbers by heart haha

 

[DavidScott]

I have a 1Xi with a Yasnac 300j control of the same vintage. Chip control really sucks, so do those that stainless trough liners. Coolant tanks are huge and weigh half a ton! Built like a brick shithouse solid but watch out for the turcite in the Z axis, mainly the clamp bars at the rear. Check to see if the head is drooping too much, a common deal killer. There are no gibs so you have to remove the bars and grind/scrape to take up the wear in the Z axis for droop, X and Y have gibs as well as Z for side wear. No registration fee or such for tech help or parts from the MTB so that is good, so is the tech help when you call them up, which is still free. If you need to rebuild the spindle I sent mine to what was Setco in L.A. who did the works including chrome/grind for $4200, 30 taper 15k. They will be doing any of my spindle work until they change, well worth the shipping. If we are talking about the same local spindle shop they talk a lot of b.s. so careful what you listen to.

If the turcite is good and you can fix everything else I would say you got a gem. I fucking love box ways though, and Kitamuras are pretty overbuilt box way mills with big fine pitch ball screws, nice and stiff if it's still tight. Other than my second sentance I don't have anything bad to say about them. They are fully supported with help and parts. Solid machines made from high quality components that last with no stupid failures from cheap stuff. I've had mine for 8 years now and don't see myself getting rid of it as there is nothing to compare it to IMO. These beefy box ways are simply addictive and getting rare.

Other downside is it will try to kill your compressor, they use a lot of air for the spindle.

This era was a made in Japan machine, through and through.

 

[Garwood]

Well, the big Kitty is coming home with me.

 

[Herding Cats]

Any option cards? If so what numbers?

 

[Garwood]

Any option cards? If so what numbers?

View attachment 348

I may not know until I get it here and really check it out. I have my work cut out for me making preparations and moving it. I did just find out it has a Big Plus spindle so that's neat I guess.

It needs retention bellevilles bad, has a spindle orient issue and may have deeper spindle issues. And it's packed with only the sharpest steel slivers. She's a dirty girl.

 

[Herding Cats]

Any updates? New machine day is always fun

 

[Garwood]

Any updates? New machine day is always fun

Last week I sold a laser and an HMC that didn't quite fit the plans anymore. Riggers were here yesterday loading those machines. Monday I'm going to block the head and disconnect the Kitamura and grab the conveyor, sump, books and bits. I have pilot cars and a Landoll setup for 8AM next Friday. The big Kitties going to come in and two old Mori MV's are going to be winched onto the Landoll and hauled in for 200/ton.

Tricky bit is legally, I can only put 42,000 on the trailer because the two machines are a divisible load. I aslo don't want to pay for pilot cars to wait in my driveway and follow the truck all the way back so I need to get the big one under 102 (saddle has to come off) So I have to use my best judgement to get the pair of Mori's as close to 42K as possible without going over. I'll be pulling the headstock, table and saddle off the big MV-65 along with all the motors and drives. I think I'll be high 20k's with the MV65 with those bits removed. The other machine weighs about 10k as it sits now.

 

[DavidScott]

It may not have Belleville's, mine uses die springs, $$$$ to buy new. Big Plus spindles were standard so no surprise. What will be a surprise is if it still works, as in it hasn't been reground.

Setco sold their L.A. location to some of the employees so it is MZI now.

 

[Garwood]

It may not have Belleville's, mine uses die springs, $$$$ to buy new. Big Plus spindles were standard so no surprise. What will be a surprise is if it still works, as in it hasn't been reground.

Setco sold their L.A. location to some of the employees so it is MZI now.

Well, my hope is that the $3700 in projected profit from scrapping the carcasses of the other machines will be enough to get the Kitamura sorted, lightly tooled and running parts. Expect the worst, hope for the best is all I can do until I take it apart.

 

[Delw]

make sure you get some pics I'd like to see it.

 

[Garwood]

11 hours of rigging machines today. Kitamura was a bitch to get in the air with the sheetmetal on. I didn't have time to take it off. Anyone who moves one of these on skates would be wiser to take the enclosure off first. Would have saved time overall I think.

Two Mori MV's staged

Kitamura coming in

Kitamura on the floor

MV's headed off to scrapyard.

That old MV45 on the back of the trailer put me in business for real. Made a lot of money with that machine. The MV65 was supposed to replace it, but it was just too run down in the end. I have more time and money invested in that machine than I probably earned with it. I cut my losses when the Kit was offered to me at a price I couldn't refuse. Yesterday, I pulled the table and saddle off the MV65 and found that the X Turcite was actually pretty rough shape and the X thrust bearings had been cobbled together. I saved the tables off both machines and have some wild plans to recycle the 120" long MV65 saddle into a shop tool I can use. The MV45 table will be turned into an angle plate for my HBM and MV65 table will be a shop table.

I have to set the crane runway beam above where the Kitamura will live this weekend. Then I can skate the Kit into place, power it up, start the cleaning and pull the headstock apart to fix the drawbar springs.

Going to go take some advil and call it a day.

 

[Garwood]

Any option cards? If so what numbers?

View attachment 348

If I'm looking in the right place it has one option board A20B-8100-0271/04A

 

[Herding Cats]

If I'm looking in the right place it has one option board A20B-8100-0271/04A

I think that is a data server board. The ATA Flash card version. Does the machine have ethernet?

 

[Garwood]

I think that is a data server board. The ATA Flash card version. Does the machine have ethernet?

It has an ethernet port.

More stuff to figure out...

 

[Herding Cats]

I just spent over half a day figuring all that out. When you're ready let me know and we'll start a thread on it that should have you up and connected to the data server in less than an hour.

 

[Garwood]

That would be super!

I have a second machine, a 16" chuck Leadwell lathe with the 18i Fanuc. I haven't used this machine because it needs some turret work. I'm getting a lot more excited about that lathe now that I have a mill with about the same control.

 

[Garwood]

Getting ahead of myself a little here, but what hardware might be required to add a 4th axis drive to the 16i Fanuc?

I have to put a rotary on this machine and have a nice super stout old 12" Hiperdex 4th that I can put a Fanuc motor on or I can just run it on M-codes. If it's about the same work either way I have some time and could shop for deals on the hardware I'd need.

 

[Herding Cats]

Vancbiker will know better than me but as far as hardware I think you just have to add a drive and a bunch of parameters including tuning the servo.

 

[Herding Cats]

Interestingly enough TIE lists that as a flash version but my 16 with a 2 gig disk has the same board. Hitachi did some odd stuff though with their UUP (universal user port) where I think you got 10,000 meters of additional memory with just the UUP and no disk connected to the data server card. (maybe the card itself has a small amount of flash memory on it)

I wouldn't mind getting my hands on another one of those cards to throw in my machine with an 18. Dragging and dropping programs at the computer into the machine is NICEEEEE!


EDIT: Looking at some of my documents there appears to be 12mb of sub memory on the card itself, then it can be hooked to a 175mb flash card or a larger hard drive. Seicos controls had the ability to use the 12mb of sub memory without being connected to an external flash or hard disk. I don't know if a straight up Fanuc control can also do this. Does your machine have a ribbon cable coming out of the card going to a flash or hard disk?

More edits: I think the flash card plugs into the blue port that the ribbon cable would plug into to run a disk.