Anyone cutting with one?

We are looking between that and a Felder H10 profit.
The GS looks insanely fast.
I like the Idea of the linear motors instead of rack and pinion. I understand they have been used in metal machines for a while.

Anyone have any knowledge of this machine or the technology?

I would be curious to know what type of service Felder has?

I would like to know the location of the nearest technician and his/her name.
I would call them and chat about machines and what else they might service.

I would do the same for Anderson. I might also consider Onsrud.

What are you going to with the machine?

Both have service in Charlotte where I am.
I will be researching the reputation of both before purchasing. As you know this should be a major part of any machine purchasing decision.

FYI: I cut closet parts.

What I am really interested in is the linear motor technology. Seems very interesting.
No physical contact to wear like rack and pinion. Their claim is that it accelerates to
top speed in 1/3 the time of Rack and Pinion. (major win for bit wear)

Fast moves on Felder is 100 M/M and 120 on the Giben.
One person I showed the youtube video of the Giben thought it was sped up :-)
I can't really find a good video of the Felder cutting a whole sheet.

Felder claims that cutting over about 30 m/m does not produce a quality cut and also causes excessive bit cost.

Giben says they can cut upwards of 80 m/m using a 4 fluted bit. Higher bit cost but not out of reason. We plan a visit to a Giben customer to see this for myself. I have seen it cut at IWF, but did not take a close look at the quality of the cut.

IF all check out, on the surface Giben wins. But I wonder if the european quality is much better than than a machine built in Taiwan? Anderson makes the Giben in Taiwan. They have been around for while. I have not heard anything bad about them.

And then there is the question of this new technology of the linear motors.

The extra speed means nothing if the machine is down alot and you don't get good service.

There are machines tried and true that cut fast.

I shy away from being the crash test dummy. Any new thinking takes time to be perfected.
I would shy away from that.

Being that Onsrud is in your backyard I find it curious you would pick Felder over them. I think Felder is rebranding equipment they buy?

Bob can you supply a link to the machine you are proposing?

From 2 years ago at IWF atlanta:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeyhcZ5U3-4
here is another:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQI-6ErObAU

Giben website:
http://www.giben.com/product/gs-nesting-line/

I have been told that this technology has been used in Metal cutting machines for years now. So maybe it's not such a new technology.

Bill - I do plan on looking at Onsrud.

Looks interesting!

Do you need the extreme speed?

I just completed a test using 3 and 4 flute bits and found the machine time savings was not what you would think. I doubled the cutting speed and the nest was not done in nearly half the time. The accel, decel tool changes.... had more of an effect than you would think.

Perhaps this technology would have a positive effect in the none cutting motion the machine goes through. I would ask for references from companies who bought them.

Is there a significant price change?

It is interesting, the large bellows keeping the components clean is interesting. In our shop the lower one would get stabbed eventually. I wonder how tolerant the components are of dust?

Good luck, keep us informed with that you find.

Price is about the same with the Giben coming in a bit lower (big surprize for me)
Both are in and around the 200K marks. Auto load and unload with no pre labeling.

Very interesting to hear the results of your test. What cutting speeds where you able to achieve with quality on both bits?
What machine are you using?
What material are you cutting?

My experience seem to concur with your test results.
When I switched from my shopbot to my first big iron machine - Biesse Rover 30, I was amazed at how little throughput was gained. After analyzing we found that the Shopbot got extra throughput because it operated the drill block (5 to the Biesse's 10) independently. The spindle stayed on all the times. So we made ONE fast move to the part, did the drilling and went right to cutting. This eliminated about 30 to 40% of fast moves. We do all our cutting with one bit to help as well.

The biesse had a great tool that would show you a pie chart of the percentage of time spent on each type of operation. Guess what - fast moves-G0 was up to 50% of the time.

Bottom line I learned was fast moves and cutting strategy are just as important as the cutting speed. Ac and Dec are just as important as all speeds.

This is one of the things drawing me to the GS. Faster Ac and Dec. and faster G0 moves.

I am having a hard time getting a machine manufacturer to let me keep the spindle running at all times.
The reason given is usually "it's the way we have always done it"
That hurts my ears. That what I heard when I came in the industry 12 year ago.
"Routers are too slow. You need a beam saw."

I don't have room to add another CNC to our current manufacturing room. I have another room available with 12,000 sq ft. but I think from a lean perspective, it would be more productive to have one fast line than 2 slower lines. Redundancy aside.

We plan on putting our old CNC in the other room all set up as a backup.

Bill, you also make a great point about the need for speed. You can only unload and put parts into the edgebander so fast.

They say they can do a 2 minute nest.
Their auto load cycle looks painfully slow, so say a 45 second load time. Your are at about 3 mins. You have to have a pretty good operator to keep up.

I think 20 sheets an hour if a pipe dream. But then again, I love to dream.

The nest was a test nest I put together it was very demanding, lots of drilling, lots of dados, lots of small parts and some tool changes. It was a 14 minute nest. It was but in Plywood. The accuracy did not suffer much, if at all. The new "faster tooling" was new so that had to help. The sound was different which was a little uncomfortable.

My machines are Busellatos. The load unload is almost funny with a machine that can move that fast.

Some times the specs are deceiving like saying you are able to cut at 2,000 ipm. It does not mean you can do it in reality.

I'd love to hear more. I would definitely ask for other buyers.

At IWF I saw a Onsrud that they had moving pretty fast. If you have the need for speed its worth a look. I think it was pushing $250K

Bob,

Feel free to contact me directly if you would like to. I'm a technician that works on every brand and Giben dealer in the Ohio Midwest region.

The acceleration/deceleration is a key factor in the speed that can be cut in a linear line since eventually you do have to cut a corner. A machine could indeed cut at 2000 ipm but if the accel/decel takes to long the tooling will overheat and dull when cutting around the corners.

Here's an example of the GS' acceleration/deceleration. I recently did a time study for a company that cut out 127 parts that were roughly 5x7 on their Busellato. They are programmed at 800 ipm. Their cycle time is just over 26 minutes.
I ran the same program on the GS programmed at the same 800 ipm with a cycle time of just over 9 minutes.

In all fairness neither machine is going to reach and maintain 800 ipm for the duration of the cutting sequence but what is apparent is the extreme difference in the accel/decel and whether or not the machine was even able to reach the programmed feed rate with such small parts. The Giben also has a variable high speed drill block with speeds up to 7400 rpm. This makes a huge difference in the Z feed speed during drilling cycles.

I'm installing a Giben Linear Motor saw at a customers that I also installed a GS in earlier this year. I'll take a video of the GS cutting cabinet parts while I'm there and post it on youtube and link it from my website.

In regards to machine quality, I spent 10 days at the Anderson Factory about 3 years ago and the quality of the Giben Anderson CNCs is outstanding.