How bad an idea is this VMC?

boston.craigslist.org/gbs/tls/3754251015.html

I've been looking into buying a Tormach, but at this price I'd be willing to invest some time and money cleaning this thing up if it's not throwing good money after bad. I understand software very well and have set up a couple stepper machines with EMC, but evaluating mechanical or electrical stuff is farther from my comfort zone. So I'm more than a little wary of this but a Tormach with ATC is pushing 15k and still might not match this old pig. It's practically in my back yard--stay away or give it a chance?

I would jump on it, even if to resell.
Try to research ahead of time common problems, why the Z error they describe.

Make sure you can power that thing though. If it has a 20hp spindle, it's not going in your garage.

Buy it (5K is inexpensive).
But I would try to keep the control as it is a good control after you manage it.

depends what you want it to do
Kitamura is a very high class make
fanuc OM not a bad control spec but workable

looks like it has fanuc Alpha motors (red caps) so could be an encoder issue, so be ready to spend there or just might be a wire issue you never know.
BT35 is a odd taper now days so finding tooling well good luck but u have a lot there with it so would not be a problem maybe. depends if you want face mills etc...

spindle speed is not listed some did 4000 rpm with gearbox, some did 6k or 8k

asking price is quite good as they do want to shift it for space on there new one

robh wrote:

looks like it has fanuc Alpha motors (red caps) so could be an encoder issue, so be ready to spend there or just might be a wire issue you never know.

I have learned a fair bit about Fanuc motors and encoders, and have some
interfacing devices for the red cap motors, as well as drives and controllers
for LinuxCNC. If the mechanical side isn't trashed, this is a STEAL!

Jon