Question (WOODWEB Member) :
Has anyone had any experience with Utis shapers? They look like a real solid machine and I'm going to fly out to France from the UK to look at one.
Forum Responses
(Solid Wood Machining Forum)
From Contributor S:
I could be wrong, but I highly doubt a Utis has ever seen North American soil, under that name at least.
Comparing it to my Martin I had these observations. I did like the manual sliding bed for the opening. My Martin has rings but they have the option of motorized ring. I think this is a case where manual is better. The other thing I liked is the solid cast frame. They ran it using a smaller than our nickel Euro coin balanced on the table. My Martin is vibration free but there is just something about solid cast construction.
Overall I thought Martin has better engineering and function in the smaller details. For example Martin’s power feed arm is more solid and easier to use even with the Utis being motorized in and out. The Martin arm rolls on ball bearings and is convenient to the operator. I believe the Utis pull out table support is on ball bearings but did not feel much different from the one on my machine. I would be concerned about only one 160mm dust outlet depending on how they pick it up under the spindle. Martin uses two 120mm hookups with the bottom under the spindle collected in a fabric shroud. It works well on heavy window and panel cuts.
I would not worry about non-motorized infeed adjustment. I think manufacturers get carried away with automating everything on these. They are not a CNC router and all the automation costs a lot. In my opinion spindle raise, fence movement and tilt are the only things that need to be automated on shapers. Tilting on the same vertical is good. Martin has a readout that compensates for this. We find that we use the plus and minus 45 degree tilt of the Martin quite a bit. I don't know the pro and con of AC or DC for the axis motors. If it was me I would test the consistency of settings using my own tooling through several cycles of height setting and fence movement. Most important is the local service you can get for the machine you choose.
Everything about this machine is heavy duty. You get the feeling that this machine will be still in operation in another 100 years times. All the electrical components can be sourced from third parties and looks very easily to work on, so I don't think maintenance is will be a problem. I'm confident that I will be able to fix this machine myself if there are any problems. It isn't PC based so I don't have to worry about a computer dying on me. The main motor is S1 rated and is made by Leroy Somer so will last forever, effectively. The inverters are off the shelf. We ran an old largish steel tool up to 6000rpm and all I heard was wind. There was no audible vibration. I could feel a small vibration through the table that I would describe as negligible. The controller was a little more advanced than the Panhans which made me concerned about reliability but UTIS told me that they have to send out two controllers a year. They produce about 100 spindle moulders a year so the controller is pretty reliable. Even if it does break down it is just a case of plug and play. The only limitation of the control is that it only has 250 programs. Overall I was very impressed but I'm still wary from all the problems I've had with my previous purchases from other machinery companies.
The Utis machine is not cheap but is probably in line with the Martin prices. I have been to the Panhans factory. Very organized very clean, lots of big expensive CNC machines. They are actually an engineering firm in their own right. They manufacturer parts for combine harvesters and probably more. They have an excellent quality control. They check all rotating components for balance and balance them if needed. They use specialist measuring equipment on their machined parts to make sure the CNCs are working to within tolerance. Everybody is working efficiently. The hole set up is impressive. They even grind coffee beans when they make you a coffee.
The Ultimo Panhans shaper is very different to the UTIS shaper. Panhans uses a welded steel base from which the aggregate is supported. Instead of encoders to measure where the axes are it uses a system that I have never seen before. It uses magnet strips and a sensor which measure the actual position of the rise and angle of the aggregate so it is measuring the actual positions and not the position of axis shafts which do not show the true position of the aggregate due to the play in gear boxes and threads. Everything under the table and the controller looked well engineered and designed. The cast iron table is in one piece with no breaks in it.
They are still developing the adjustable/sliding bed so only rings are available at the moment. The fence enclosure (I don’t know what else to call it, it’s the big ‘U’ shaped part that holds the fences) is driven by a stepper motor on one side which has no measuring system other than counting the steps. I don’t know what to think about this arrangement, good or bad? The fence enclosure has a locking mechanism which clamps it to the table after moving into position. I haven’t come across this locking arrangement before either. I have questions with how the fence enclosure moves and am researching into it at the moment with Panhans so I really don’t want to go into it at the moment. It has an excellent fence enclosure removal system for ring fence work. The Panhans is less expensive than the Utis.
Contributor O, you mention that Martin have gone for a double fence enclosure drives instead of one. I can see why they have done this because if not one side will lag behind the other. My SCM shaper uses prismatic slides for the fence enclosure and even though it is driven on one side it seems to be sturdy enough. Panhans seems to be handling a lot of different products and services with different designers allocated to each product and service. Utis has only three products really, thicknessor, surface and shaper with father and son dedicated to the design and development of them. I think that spreading yourself too thin can be a bad thing.
