2012/5/13 Stephen Dubovsky <smdubov...@gmail.com>: > On Sun, May 13, 2012 at 3:45 AM, Viesturs Lācis > <viesturs.la...@gmail.com>wrote: > >> LinuxCNC is advanced enough that the functionality of the retrofitted >> machine will totally match capabilities of brand new machine. >> >> > LinuxCNC isn't the problem. The old iron is. And it has nothing to do w/ > the condition of old iron. Its the SPEED. Time is money. > > Say you're making a million dollars annually on a machine. Even a mere 20% > increase will pay for a $200k new machine the first year. You can see why > it can be easy for a big shop to justify new million dollar VMCs. Add in > the depreciation schedule, pay of operators to run each machine, floor > space costs/limits, faster job turnaround time, etc and it the benefits of > new/better/faster can add up really fast to some companies.
Yes, I have read these arguments. Of course, there are special cases - aerospace industry and maybe some other. I am sure that for vast majority of machine shops that is not true. There is no such company in my country that is making a million in revenues on one machine. The one I built the welding robot for - yes, they have revenues in millions per year, but they have 20+ Doosan cnc lathes, mills and who knows what else remained hidden from my sight. And a lot of the final value is added by employees that assemble, paint and do whatever stuff to produce ready-for-use things. I know that their main products are bend-saws and hydraulic manipulators, including the rotors. And whatever stuff customer orders... What I wanted to say - if a single machine makes millions per year, then that has to be a very very special machine. If I have to choose one machine for 180K or retrofitted machine for 10K, which has 60% productivity of the new machine, I would choose 2 retrofitted machines, so I get 120% of productivity of new machine for 20K. Yes, of course that requires more space in premises. How much space does one machining centre occupy? I think that vast majority of them - less than 10 sq.m. How much does constructing industrial premises cost? In my country it is less than 400 EUR/sq.m., so let it be 1K/sq.m. That would be 10K for a machine. The total cost of 40 K per 2 machines is still several times lower than new machine and there are 2 machines in shop instead of one - don't tell me that new machines do not go out of order... Rarely, but they do. And when they do, it also costs a fortune to get them up and running - guys that manufactured all the parts for the welding robot have pretty new cnc mill. Mainboard of the cnc controller went out of order - it cost ~2000 USD to replace it. How many D525s could I burn and replace for even half of that amount? And all those stories about Siemens cnc controllers having HDDs with proprietary connectors, so user cannot put another IDE or SATA drive in it, but has to purchase another from Siemens for 4000 USD... So no - thanks. I will stick with used machines and retrofit them to LinuxCNC. Viesturs ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
