I dunno, dad doesn't like the enclosed machines so that's his preference.... however we are currently talking with A-Trump about another machine that is the exact same as this one but fully enclosed. This one is messy because we've been running a lot of plastic parts and the vacuum works well for cleaning those chips. We've seen enclosed machines before and if they are not sealed well they will leak coolant, most of the times with plastic we just use air and we have a unit that applies a special fluid that is air operated that blows it on the tool, it's like a coolant mister but they don't call it that, from what I've been told is that Ford uses these units in their transmission plants where they work mostly with aluminum but we've found they work great for plastic too and they have different types of fluid depending on what you are machining but we've just been using their universal one. I've been told that for it to work well on S.S. you need a different fluid that has a higher flash point but we have coolant for those jobs. I think he doesn't like the enclosed ones because of cleaning them out which seems harder, he does talk about cnc lathes that have a conveyor that will clean the chips out into a barrel but our lathe doesn't have that feature nor was an option.No clue about anything in this thread but the machine interests me. The machine shop where I worked had rows of CNC machines that were fully enclosed. Is there a reason yours is open? Seems it would be messy.
The main difference between the older machines and this new one is how the control talks to the sensors on the machine, controlling the motors, etc... the old setup they used serial cables to the computer which has a controller card inside which is similar to a typical expansion card that plugs into the slot on the motherboard, these new ones I believe are fiber optic and goes to a special unit that converts it over to ethernet which that cable is then run to the PC.
We currently have 4 CNC milling machines and a CNC lathe which is mostly the one I'm running.