Thread: Are Chinese machines really improving?

Grahame,
the quality of Chinese manufactured goods including machine tools is improving dramatically over the past few years. But: we don't get to see the better tools. The market they are manufacturing their good stuff is for the Chinese market. Heck, there are rural cities in China with the population of Australia! We just don't show up as a market segment even in their statistics. Sorry, mate.
To get the good gear out of China, you have to buy it yourself there. By that I mean you need to find the right manufacturer, build a relationship with them and then get them to select the item(s) from their domestic or regular range for you. You may get a surprise at the cost of doing that. Cheap krap is cheap, good quality gear is not. Shipping from China (of heavy items) is about the same as shipping from the USA, but generally slower.
What your average Australian low-end market importer gets is the dregs or rejects. Since our 'village Australia' really has no impact on their sales figures - if they were to actually care - remember this is a communist country we are talking about: the State owns the factories and workers at all levels are just people who turn up, do what they are told to do and leave again - job satisfaction or pride in their work are optional foreign concepts, just like for fruit pickers or garbos, no offense intended.
If we still had a manufacturing industry, then there would be machinery dealers (like there used to be) who do all this for you and ensure that you are getting quality machinery out of China - just like we (i.e. our actual industry, not you and me hobyist) used to.
There are some great Chinese machines in Australia, but most have gone back to China as scrap metal and they were too big for your or my workshop.... and they cost only a bit less than Taiwanese, then Japanese, then Russian, then American, then European equivalents. But in any case multiples of the cheap krap you get through eBay sellers and current Australian Importers. Just sometimes you are lucky and you get one that nearly made QA or actually came from a reputable factory with proper design offices, rather than some village foundry and their local machine shop with machines from before the revolution.
I sometimes say that you don't see the current US and European quality tool manufacturers selling on eBay - and we certainly don't have any Australian importers for Swiss machine tools in Australia. But we keep comparing the lowest end of the Chinese output with the quality end of the US and European output and seem to be disappointed with the result...... You get what you pay for.... that's it.
Sorry about the rant....

Originally Posted by Grahame Collins

Lets hear your thoughts gents.Tell us what you dislike and what you would want to see improved.

You mean if I could get a free lunch? Then I'm have Schaublin quaintly at the Chinese price

Why should they keep improving if we keep driving the price down?

But really how much do you want to pay? China is able to make good lathes... we in general don't want to or cant pay for them. Sure to put it very nicely they aren't the greatest lathes in the world but considering what we pay for them I am amazed how good they are.(certainly when you find out how much of that money gets to the guy making the lathe)
If I recall correctly the adjusted price for a Hercus lathe is about $11000. You can now buy a lathe about the same size for $2000. How many in this forum would have a lathe if they had to pay that sort of money?

What about Japanese lathe... how about a Mazak? Guess where the castings are made.


Stuart

Have a look at this video clip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZvxKmv5Pdc this is how your s and my tools are made and the conditions of the 'factory'. There is no QA department. the girl is putting the precision blocks directly into the shipping boxes
Then look at this page and the products page http://www.cy-ymtw.com/en/introduction.asp and this one http://www.ayjcjt.com/en/gsjj.php to see where and how the machine tools for the markets that count are made.

Jhovel, you can see they take their OH&S very seriously. She's wearing a glove to deflect those metal shavings flying at her face.

You could print your own on a 3D printer: http://youtu.be/4rrh6Pl4vow

Here is the Chinese hobby workshop machine I would really like: http://www.cy-ymtw.com/en/X8126C%20X8126B.asp my mouth is drooling already.... pity it weighs 2.1ton and at a wild guess would cost around $25,000 or more - probably $20,000 less than the equivalent Swiss one...

You'll notice that the better chinese machines come with Fanuc and Siemens control gear..

On the other end of the scale I fixed a hydraulic pipe bender control system earlier this year, the control system for angled bends consisted of a shaft encoder feeding a single ended counter... ( why use both quadrature phases that were on the encoder? duh! ) the dc power supply was 24V AC which when filtered gives 34V DC maximum for the counter was 9-30VDC... which had died.. bottom line is that no evidence of thought or planning had gone into the control system.. let alone using quality components.

I'd like to see the statistics on chinese motor start capacitors that have failed on machines sold by Hare and Forbes.. I'd guess it would be close to 50% failure rate.

Ray

Last time I looked at the H&F lathe offerings there wasn't a machine at less than the $5000 to $6000 price point that I considered was worth owning. As for the other importers, unless I could personally inspect them I'd have doubts about what I was getting as the stories of ignorance, incompetence and plain lying seem to be legion.

It's pointless saying what I'd like because nobody is going to take any notice. However I'd want the fundamentals - ways to a decent standard of straight and flat, spindle bearings fit for purpose, spindle runout within tolerance for a lathe, decent camlock chuck mount and enough overall mass to resist cutting forces and damp vibration. Lathe specs have been spelt out for decades, there's no point saying it all again.

PDW

Originally Posted by RayG

You'll notice that the better chinese machines come with Fanuc and Siemens control gear..

On the other end of the scale I fixed a hydraulic pipe bender control system earlier this year, the control system for angled bends consisted of a shaft encoder feeding a single ended counter... ( why use both quadrature phases that were on the encoder? duh! ) the dc power supply was 24V AC which when filtered gives 34V DC maximum for the counter was 9-30VDC... which had died.. bottom line is that no evidence of thought or planning had gone into the control system.. let alone using quality components.

I'd like to see the statistics on chinese motor start capacitors that have failed on machines sold by Hare and Forbes.. I'd guess it would be close to 50% failure rate.

Ray

which way lower than 50 or higher?
I 'd put money on higher that they wouldnt last 6 months

It's fun, in a lucky-dip sort of way, to buy a bargain Chinese product.

Quality fade is an issue for importers, amongst other problems.
"Poorly Made in China" is an entertaining, and sometimes depressing, account of some of the issues.
http://www.bookdepository.com/book/9...FUaWvQodtR8A3Q

Lots of China made stuff at my place. Some of it not too bad!

Jordan

Originally Posted by nadroj

It's fun, in a lucky-dip sort of way, to buy a bargain Chinese product.

Quality fade is an issue for importers, amongst other problems.
"Poorly Made in China" is an entertaining, and sometimes depressing, account of some of the issues.
http://www.bookdepository.com/book/9...FUaWvQodtR8A3Q

Lots of China made stuff at my place. Some of it not too bad!

Jordan

When you consider it's the same or even cheaper to buy a Chinese lathe now than 10 years ago, it's pretty amazing value for money.

If the stuff was unacceptably bad then I guess the Poms and Yanks would still rule the market.

Rob

Originally Posted by Grahame Collins

If you were setting some standards what would you ask for:

More rigidity ?
Better casting quality
Much improved QA and QC

Lets hear your thoughts gents.Tell us what you dislike and what you would want to see improved.

Grahame

But Grahame, the Chinese are extremely good at making exactly what we want. Not what we dream of, they make WHAT WE WANT TO BUY. Most of us westerners hobby metalworkers (Americans, Europeans... including us Australians) do want cheap cheap cheap bargains. Quality, rigidity, life span yes we take as much of it what we can get, but the one key factor deciding our purchases is CHEAP prices. WE make the choice of buying crap quality, they just make what we want to buy.

Many of us still have a view of a China as it was 30 yers ago. It has changed a lot. House prices in Shanghai make houses in say Adelaide look cheap. The Chinese middle class themselves do not want to buy those cheap low quality products made for us. They buy good quality imported goods made in Europe or USA. Be it cars or food or clothes.

Hobbylathes and hobbymills? Myford went broke not long ago, because too few of us were prepared to pay $10k for a 7" swing lathe. It is sad, but most of us rather buy a $1k AL50 and live with its poor quality. And then winge a few years later as we loose our job, because we do the same with nearly everything we buy. In another 20 years, we will be the low paid ones manufacturing low tech junk for what today are emerging countries. And guess what, its exactly what we deserve. How can one cry out against the culture of shareholder value, when we ourselves choose to buy cheap low grade goods and try making money with money for our superannuation.

Me? I cannot resist to buy some cheap Chinese stuff too, but then spend far too much time on trying to make them better, and mostly come to regret it in the long run. My lathes are Austrian Emco and Australian Hercus, I derive more pleasure from well made things. But guys like me are dying out.

Originally Posted by cba_melbourne

But Grahame, the Chinese are extremely good at making exactly what we want. Not what we dream of, they make WHAT WE WANT TO BUY. .

I think it goes even deeper, in that we live in a disposable society.

We learnt that from the Japanese - that is their view.

So goods are priced and quality is good enough for a reasonable life span, then chuck it, and buy another.

It makes sense as it allows us to buy stuff we could not other wise afford, and it gets around stuff wearing out issue, don't attempt to repair, just buy another. And it employs more people.

Everything wears out, regardless of who made it.

Rob

I would say not really, though it depends on the time frame we are talking. 10 years ago i bought a HM50. Whilst it never blew a motor cap the quality was appalling. The scraping looked like it was done by a blind guy with an axe, the table was not perpendicular with the column, the pulleys rubbed on the guards on some belt settings etc etc.
What worries me is that in 10 years the price of these machines has only recently started going up, actually they went down after i bought mine. And now they come with a DRO. How can this be considering inflation and the rising price of shipping. I can only guess we are getting the worst rejects ever.....

I think you all know my stand on these machines. I wouldn't buy another one. If i had money to splash on a new machine i'd buy something decent second hand and pay someone like MTA to reco it. Unless of course i had a spare 100k....

Ew

Originally Posted by Grahame Collins

Evening all,

Is is it just me, as a single grumpy aging curmudgeon ..................

The importers need dragging around by their half nuts for not monitoring what they sell.

If we don't let the importers know they will never seek to ask their manufacturers for better quality machinery................

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being of a curmudgeonly nature

But more seriously, an organisation the size of Hafpos knows exactly the quality of what they are buying, and they are quite content with what they are buying. Their business model is to buy as cheap cheap cheap as possible, they are making good money doing business that way and that's what a business is supposed to do, make money. I'm not sticking up for Hafpos, just saying how it is.

I can't see Hafpos changing how they do business any time soon. Even though they presumably have the lions share of the Australian machine tools market, Hafpos always has to be mindful of the independent low overhead importers. In the market at which they are all aiming Hafpos needs to remain competitive, it is unfortunately a race to the bottom.

Originally Posted by RayG

...........................

I'd like to see the statistics on chinese motor start capacitors that have failed on machines sold by Hare and Forbes.. I'd guess it would be close to 50% failure rate.

Ray

Talking to a Hafpos tech about 4 years ago, he told me they had a 20% motor failure rate, presumably he was talking 240V motors. To me that is an astounding failure rate, but Hafpos must have run the numbers and figured that that they make more money putting up with that and dealing with claims, rather than buying better quality motors.