Is This The Best CNC Control? 

I started working on this control in 2010. and it was so amazing that my company purchased five more machines with same control.

It’s something we all complain about in this trade. How are the controls on million dollar machines less advanced than an Atari? It’s cool to see that a company out there is taking it to the next level! Hope to work on one soon

I write CAM post processors for both Siemens 840D and Heidenhain control. I'd say both are equally as powerful, but Heidenhain is so much easier to work with from a code perspective. It's way more intuitive than Siemens. Plane spatial vs cycle 800 is one example. Heidenhain drilling cycles are also so much easier to set up and read. Siemens has the same problem as fanuc, in that you can configure it 10,000 different ways, making troubleshooting post processors way more annoying than Heidenhain

Absolutely could not agree more! I’ve been using Siemens CNCs for more than 20 years, and I’ve always preferred them over any other. Even the old 840D PowerLine CNCs were far more powerful than most others today. Glad to see the rest of the world is finally catching up!

I work with hurco machines almost exclusively at my shop, and I have to say it's super user friendly and awesome to work with. Have any of you guys from Titans worked with those machines? To be honest it looks like of one the only controls that could give the Siemens a run for its money

I didnt like the calling tools by name instead of T number thing at first becouse i was used to the "old system", but now after using it for a while i love it.

i`ve been on the Siemens 828D for about 6 or so years, and for our application mainly multi start tapered thread ( new and repair), it has been amazing

A very comprehensive presentation on that Siemens controller.

I'm an electrician and I repair many different machines from different manufacturers and years of construction, no control was so simple and intuitive before. The graphical displays make it really easy to understand what the machine is doing with each command. Inserting a drilling cycle into a program is a matter of seconds, even if you've never done it before. Creating a workpiece and simulating the machining on the control is also super easy.

Good vid Barry. I ran a 2003 Giddings with the 840d and it's still my favorite control. Even back then, the control had most of the features you showed here. Two points I'd like to add: 1. Restarting is so easy and you can do it anywhere. The machine will find its way there. 2. The power of sinumerik for parametric programming. It makes the latest generation of Macro B look like an abacus by comparison. I have a couple fanuc 31i-B5 controls with iHMI and they don't wven compare.

Once you go Siemens you never go back, waited for youse to show off some of the features can’t wait for more.

I have experience with both the Siemens 840 and the Heidenhein TNC640 systems. While both are excellent, I find the Heidenhein system a bit easier to use. It offers similar or even greater capabilities, and its touchscreen interface with larger buttons is better optimized compared to Siemens, where precise button presses can be challenging at least with my greasy fingers

The TNC7 is the newest Heidenhain

I have been using controls for several years including haas fanuc siemens 810 and more and I definitely prefer the mazak smooth range over all

YASSS CONTROL GREATNESS!

Great video Barry! I would agree. My favorite control as well.

I think this is very cool. I am more or less a newer cnc machinist been only at it for 6 years after a long time as a welder. One of the first machines I had to learn how to use was an older Monarch Spinner using a Siemans setup but only setup for Germans called sinumerik. I was often lost at figuring out how to work the controls on this vertical and find it pretty crazy I had to learn the TSM on my own and other things to set things like my Z offsets. The place I was working at gave me mediocre instructions because they had their own way of making things "work" more or less and no harm there but I really wish I was able to learn that machine to its fullest potential. I am now in a world where a lot of fanucs are used as the the nc and control systems but we also added a communicative siemans Cin/Milcron Arrow to the shop, the fucking thing still runs on windows 98 and I really like the way it works, I would like it even more to have your set up for sure so thank you so much for showing me something pretty rad!

I wish you guys would put machining THIS part in a playlist. I been trying to keep up with it. Super cool

Not much that is better than Heidenhain from the early 2000. And nothing that impressed me that much after working with a TNC 640 with touch and OCM packet. Sure the program edit on the fly is nice but I simulate everything for the next job while running the the last parts of the old one. The only thing I give it is the calculater. Heidenhain has one too but it has no "list", just one number.

I worked on 840d but i like Heidenhain TNC 640 more. I'm looking forward into trying TNC 7

I Love the Siemens controls because they offer simple userfriendly controls with all the Bells and whistles you need for optimal producing.

now compare it to Heidenhain ITNC 640 xD still my favourite

My last job as a journeyman manual machinist was at Allied Systems in Tualatin, OR. At age 70 then I got to see CNC equipment evolve to what I see now, totally mind blowing machining I have never seen before! Ha, my last machine was as horizontal boring mill. It was so warn out every bearing surface was out of tolerance years ago. Not all the speeds even worked! The spindle deflected as I bored out holes or milled. To counter this, I used hand ground high speed tool bits with radical angles to minimize push back hoping the tool would last the job to bore through without tool failure. That means low rpm and modest feed rates but peeling out steel with as deep a cut as I could make it. I always went to the lower end of tolerances, a total most of the time within 2 thou. If the hole was too small, I got out the air grinder and a flapper wheel to open up the bore, checking as I went to get it in tolerance. It was the complete opposite of what I see here! The company I worked for did not make enough profit to buy new, modern machines and the owners did not appreciate what a good machine could do to pay for itself. It was a dirty, grizzly, hard, back breaking job, but at 70, planters faciatis, hurting back, no air conditioning or heat, I got it done. There are so many smaller size businesses like this one. Before that I temped at ESCO, another grizzly job doing heavy lathe work. I am glad I am out of the trade. I went to school to learn CNC programming and operating, but no one would pay enough to support my family, so I was forced to stay in the manual side. Nice work, guys, I wish I was there!

10 years in the trade and almost exclusively been running old and brand new Okuma OSP machines which I like alot and for what it looks like quite similar to Siemens.

This sounds like a terrific control. I'm an old retired manufacturing engineer who used to do manual programming on a Flex-O-Writer, and then feed the tape into the machine's memory. I programmed mostly Fanuc, Pratt & Whitney, Cincinnati Milacron, Meldas CNC controls....... But by far my favorite control was a Seimens 7-M hooked up to an Acroloc Machining Center (2.5 sec. tool change -- lightning fast!). The features on the Siemens control that I liked most of all where the ability to put in variables, and to have the machining cycle jump around in the program anyway that you wanted to. These made programs very short and easy to understand and debug. It was what I would call "a programmer's control". Siemens came out with an 8-M control also, but almost nobody ordered them..... They were just too sophisticated for the average programmer. The Siemens mentality was so far beyond other control manufacturers mentalities. They built flexibility into their programming style that other MCU units just didn't have. I'm not surprised that this Siemens control is your favorite!

Controllers are a fascinating subject! The Siemens has a nice, clean layout. Very cool!

Seems to be an unpopular opinion in the feild , but I've always been a big fan of Mazatrol controls. Love the way it gives a nice template that will tell u if u have a issue so even with little experience u can easily write a program on the machine, while it also allows u to run G code for when u need to do more complicated 3d work.

PLEASE MAKE VIDEO REGARDING HIEDENHAIN CONTROL

The UI looks like the one we have on our DMG CLX 350. Its an awesome and very intuitive UI to work with.

i have been working with siemens 810D and 840D sl for over 15 years in germany. i think this control system is one of the best of all, next to Haidenhain. It is quite simple to understand and very easy to reproduce Solid Cam programmes. I love TITANS OF CNC in America. Greetings from a German fan

heidenhain is better.

From my own multus 4000 with the OSP 300 controller, there isnt much difference, but i would say getting a tool from the tool page on the siemens is better, still need to remember the tool number when i've found the tool i want in the list on the OSP... but the Okuma doesn't need homing and referencing when you turn on the machine... beside that, pretty much the same over all.

Great video. Keep ‘em coming.

Barrymetric Therapy on a Tuesday…..perfect

I don't have much experience with the Siemens control personally. Like any control, they all have their quirks and the operator needs to spend enough time familiarizing themselves with the control. If the machine is dancing, the chips are falling, and profits are being made. Great video team!

I agree, Siemens are the best controls, very user-friendly and intuitive, very powerful as well. Great showcase video!

We use 840D at my work its so good, we do some really precise work with it

Awesome Job!!!

As someone that works for Siemens as a CNC machinist. It’s interesting no machine here uses Siemens control, we use primarily fanuc and a couple machines with (what I use) heidenhain

Great video. I haven’t seen anybody show how to use a controller before. Everybody just asu es that you know how to use it.

I work for Siemens machine shop and not 1 machine we have has a Siemens control. 😂 i would love to try one because it looks pretty similar to Okumas controls. Especially when getting programs . But Siemens control deff. Looks like it does even more. I love the canned cycle arrow portion.

Great video. Glad to see what Siemens is all about. Even though it looks nice and full of fun options. I don’t see it worth it here where I am as they have a bad reputation on support and machinists who know Siemens, Heiden, or mazatrol tend to expect better wage just for knowing the control even if less skillful. Fanuc , Yasnac, or Haas does the same result and more user friendly to change or modify the code on the machine. However IF you program on the controller; that could be a whole different discussion as I was told THATS where the power of these controls shines most. Or so I think anyways I could be wrong of course. But great video I love to be able to see how much Siemens evolved I remember it being a task to make a tool change on that control 20 or so years ago. 😂

I used to work with Hurco controls and they are very user friendly almost resembling some features of the Siemens controls. Now, unfortunately I have to work with 2018 Fanuc controls and it’s night and day. Everything is so involved on Fanuc controls from making a simple tool change to loading a program. I miss being able to go into the folder on the Hurco and just select the program and you probe the part, ready to go.

I use this control everyday and it's definitely the best

only thing i dislike is the onscreen keyboard, i like my physical keys but other than that 840d is a bliss to work with

Great job Barry!

Awesome video!

Barry you missed the most important thing about the Siemens control and that is the conversational on machine programming ie: Shopmill and I’ve used it for over 12 years now and the time you save using will blow most people’s minds. Also what you can do in it is amazing.

What's the difference between the first align edge and the second align edge in probing cycles?

I love modern controls and all the functionality that comes with them, but I dont want newer controls to remove physical buttons the same way cars have done. I would rather have Function buttons around the screen and a full keyboard instead of in some sub-menu on the screen itself. Maybe thats just me

Best thing is you can run Programms directly of a Network drive no need for a Thumb drive :) and to be precise its a 840D sl (Solution Line) older model was PL for Power Line

I've been working with heidenhain for a few years and i loved it. But i'm working on siemens controls now, and i have to say, that they are more powerful. parametric programs, loops and stuff are much easier to do. the only thing i hate on siemens is the limited memory in the NC-Area (mostly around 5MB).

One of the fantastic features on the 840 shopmill control is the way it handles sister tooling allowing the machine to automatically swap over to a new tool after a given number of parts OR a given number of hours/minutes/seconds. The tool naming is in my opinion far superior to the old conventional tool number system. Absolutely THE best control i have used EVER, and i have a lot of experience in my 38 years in the industry with Hurco, Fanuc, Mazatrol, Fanuc Anilam and Heidenhein all heavily used by me and all inferior.

Control looks very similar to the OKUMS OSP300 Control. We have an OKUMA and love the control. Only real quirk is program file name is limited to 16 characters for wtv reason lol!

I have 3 machines with the 840D and yeah it's very intuitive. The only thing you explain kinda wrong is about the program name. you can't name them what ever you want... the name is limited to 28 digits 😁

Lol, we were just talking about this last week. The damn controls on HAAS suck on the new machines slow AF and they freeze up often. Then the Motoman board on one of our Amada robots using PCMCIA cards to store parameters, just getting those cards these days is a pain. That Siemens control is pretty slick, of course I would expect that on a high dig machine like a Heller. The only control that was ahead of it's time was on the old Cincinnati machines, similar to how that Siemens is, drag and drop files, running a Windows type of interface.

Can you call pdf files as part of a program (eg call up an image as an instruction to the operator to take a manual measurements using a certain procedure)

Sinumerik 840d is best cnc controller i ever worked!

Love running 840D, once I got used to it I never want to run anything else.

archaic: see also Fanuc is that what i should take from this. LOL that is an amazing control for sure. informative video. keep'um coming

That is an awesome control. Having developed many applications with gui’s to accommodate the general masses is a daunting task to say the least. You can tell a lot of thought went into designing this control. Man if I had that machine I don’t think I’d ever leave my shop. Wonder if you can watch YT in a PIP window . It does everything else it seems! As always I appreciate the awesome content you guys put out. Much love and gratitude. ❤💥

I am not master of all controls but Haas can even have a video in program etc. And this pdf is good stuff, but is there method to find it if you have 1000 pdfs. Haas can also have option to engrave number of part and increase it by 1 for every part, get WCS in 180° arc (not full hole), but still can not get angle between 2 holes, like Siemens can. Heidenhain doesn't lose MDI data, once you leave it... Every control has something better than other, and once you start fully use that option you miss it on other more than you benefit from all other features. Mazatrol is apparently most advanced control, but it's only on mazak....

I’ve just started in applications for a company and just only been exposed to the world of cnc milling like crazy. The machines we have at our showroom have Siemens 828D Control and wow it’s a breeze to program and set and operate. Fanuc manual guide feels prehistoric! I don’t want to go back to Fanuc now! These controls are so user friendly, also Siemens control on our machines are cheaper than the Fanuc controls. I know what I would choose if I wanted a new machine!

The most intuitive UI for a CNC I have seen, is the one Datron has.

You don't need to select the tool in the TSM menu to use the s function to let it rotate. If the tool is loaded into the spindle thats enough.

Can you do a video on spline cutting with a lathe

Please do more on this subjeckt

with the controls so easy and intuitive... can you explain to a noob as myself - how did you turn a drill insert into stardust accidentally? :D

Damn that is a really nice controller. You know what is great though, for being a "hobby" machine, I dont even like calling them that for how capable they are, but I really love pathpilot with tormach. I would say its easily the best controller software of its tier of machine. I know mach3 is capable but pathpilot is just so user friendly and intuitive. I hope fanuc starts upgrading their UI and getting more intuitive like the siemens because the next upgrade I plan to go from a tormach is a brother speedio and they all run on fanuc.

I like Siemens 840d sl controller with dmg Mori machine

I'm curious, how much better Siemens control is for lathe, compared to Fanuc? Cuz Fanuc with Manual Guide UI is the only control I've ever used xD

What's the Siemens control like for full 5-axis simultaneous work? Everyone I talk to tells me that Heidenhain is the best control when it comes to this, as it's the most powerful control, and therefore doesn't have any trouble processing the code. I even had someone tell me that they got rid of their Siemens machine and replaced it with a Heidenhain machine for this very reason (that's 10 yrs ago now though, so the Siemens may have improved) Our Fanuc controls doesn't like full 5-axis work. You have to really slow them down.... but i don't think anyone would argue that Fanuc is better than either Siemens or Heidenhain...

As we are talking about the 840D does anyone have some examples of run my screens coding? i would like to see other peoples ideas in this area. And maybe i can make my/coworkers life a bit easier when running our machine. thx

I think Fanuc is the most widely used control type and it is certainly the control type I've seen the most in my 13 years in the manufacturing industry. The company I work for does a lot of high volume production and Fanuc just works for most of our North American facilities. I know you see a lot more Siemens controllers on machines in Europe, Heller uses Siemens as do other brands from Europe.

Siemens is probably the only other control i would work with (i only work with Heidenhain atm)

I'm 65 years old, and I figure I'd need 1 to 4 weeks to get totally comfortable with that controller. What's the OS underneath Windows, or did the smarten up and go with SELinux? (DMG boots SELinux on their heidenhain (sp) controllers, with a python coded gui.)

Siemens looks like a nice platform to work with! Can you also probe centrepoints between X+ and X- for example? Or level out a flat plane like Heidenhain 640 can do with plane spatial? These features are of extreme importance for the workpieces I make,

I really like Sinumerik for many reasons . But user interface is just a part of an NC. If you want to compare the performance of two nc's in terms of speed and accuracy you should run the same part on the same machine equipped with different controllers. There are also further aspects to take into account, such as hardware reilability, which is a real strenght of Fanuc. That said

Almost every controllers have their pros and cons, the easiest controller to training people on is without doubt Heidenhain, also the quickest for programming on the work shop floor. A little bit awkward with system variabels, so when i do training and are programming on the shopfloor i prefer heidenhain, if i make macroes, using system variables etc, i prefer osp

Try swiss turning on Mitsubishi controls :D thats fun

The last company I was with had two brand new 5 axis Mazak lathes w/mazatrol and they were scared to touch them. Expensive paperweights. I did manage to dust off a few doosan slant turns and get them going and turning a profit. Sadly they got their PPP loan and 90% of the shop floor was laid off within two weeks.

A kind of greatness BOOM 💥

I’ve used Mazatrol, MSX-501, Celos MAPPS, straight G code and Siemens 828D. And IMO Siemens would have to be the best. And then Mazatrol in second place.

Hey Barry, it would be interesting to compare the possibilities of simulation on the machine control of the 840D with the Haidenhain tnc 640 on the ibarmia. I work with the tnc and i love the possibility to write a label for the raw stock. Greetings from Germany

Which leads to the next question: Let's say I've got a mill sitting on my floor that (1) was built during the Reagan Administration and (2) is older than any of my employees. The machine still runs profitably but I'd like to change to a better control. Can the 840D be retrofitted to it, or does the mill have to go too?

Heidenhain is the best cnc control. even dmg mori uses it in their own machines/plant

Never used this type of control before. Seems just as user friendly and the newer heidenhain touch screen.

At 5:14 you dont need to put in tool name again if you want to run the spindle :D just type in desire RPM and you good to go. ;)

i bought an 810d spinner lathe, can't find any tutor on this control sadly :(

I have 30 years of experience with many different CNC controls. My ranking: 1. Siemens, 2. Haidenhein, 3. Fanuc.

These controls are so far advanced from punched tape I used in college. It’s like living in a since fiction world.😊

What about a C.O.R.E. panel from UGG?

Siemens best command 😍

No joke at the shop I’m at we have a Haas that runs on floppy disk. It’s honestly an amazing machine and holds great tolerance but runs on floppy

Im Working with Heidenhain 530 &640 and I like them more than Simens control

Did you tryed newer Siemens ONE? Because Siemens is trying to not sell the 840D, because of their newer ONE. I work in shop as application technician where we are building cnc machines and the price for 840D is higher then for ONE. We are trying to build machines as our customers want, but they are not making easy for us. Its crazy. For me is Siemens good CNC Machine control, but I prefer Heidenhain and Im waiting for their TNC7, it should come to our shop very soon.

only thing is that you cant use space in a programm name. i worked with it and 1. time i named a program like: programm 1 it doesnt work but with program1 it works

What about Okuma OSP?

Hey you think you could pop the hood for those of us that want to reverse engineer it

Siemens is the best in every industrial field :) It must be because I work there :D