Amada Vipros 368 King II
Turret Sleeving

Amada Vipros 368 King II at a glance

Era

1999-2003

Tonnage

33 ton

Stations

58

Turret

Thick turret

Auto-Index

4 A/I

Control

Fanuc 18P

The Vipros line ran 1995–2005 and is out of production. These machines are young enough to be thoroughly capable and old enough to have real turret hours on them — the most common profile we are called to.

Where this machine is in its life

A Vipros 368 King II from 1999-2003 sits in the sweet spot for restoration. It is old enough to have accumulated real turret wear, and modern enough that the rest of the machine has plenty of working life in it. Nothing about its capability has been superseded for most sheet metal work.

Shops running these machines are usually not looking to replace them — they are looking to stop scrapping parts.

How a Vipros 368 King II turret wears

At 33 tons, the Vipros 368 King II sits in the workhorse band — mixed duty, mixed material, and usually the machine a shop reaches for first. That versatility is also why its turret wears: it runs the widest range of work, and the stations holding the most-used tools take a disproportionate share of the hits.

With 58 stations, work is spread across a wide turret, which is why wear on these machines is so rarely uniform. In practice a handful of stations carry the common tools and wear out well ahead of the rest. Most Vipros 368 King II jobs are partial as a result — the worn stations are sleeved and the sound ones are left alone, which keeps both cost and downtime down.

The tell is always the same: the fault stays with the station rather than following the tool. Move a tool that is producing bad parts to another station — if it runs clean there, the bore is worn, and new tooling will not change that. See holes out of round or burring on punched parts for the full diagnosis.

What sleeving a Vipros 368 King II involves

Each worn bore is machined to a precise oversize and a hardened USA-made steel sleeve is pressed in with an interference fit, restoring the station to Amada factory tolerance — typically within 0.0002″. Engineers travel to you; the Vipros 368 King II never ships. 2–3 days of downtime, typically $8,000–$25,000 depending on scope. After the first install your own maintenance staff can replace sleeves in future.

Set against $100,000–$500,000+ for a replacement machine — see sleeve or replace, including where replacing genuinely wins.

4 A/I on this machine

The Vipros 368 King II carries 4 auto-index stations of its 58. Auto-index stations rotate tooling in 0.01° increments through gears, bearings and a rotary encoder mechanism — all in constant motion, all wearing. Symptoms are angular drift, indexing errors, alarm codes and parts punched off-angle.

TSI rebuilds them completely and calibrates before sign-off, routinely in the same visit as sleeving. Auto-index refurbishment · diagnosing angle errors.

Is the Vipros 368 King II a thick or thin turret machine?

The Vipros 368 King II is a thick turret machine. Thick and thin describe the turret, not automatically the tooling — the two are quoted separately, and a machine has to be identified on both counts before sleeves or tooling are ordered.

Tonnage will not tell you either: several 22-ton Amada machines run thick turrets. If you are not certain what your press carries, send us the model and serial number and we will confirm it. See also thick vs thin turret and how Amada model numbers work.

What the number tells you

Amada model numbers describe the machine. The Vipros 368 King II decodes as a 30-ton class press with a 60 × 80 table — the first digit is tonnage, the other two are table width and length. Its full designation is VIPROS-306080.

How to read an Amada model number — useful when your paperwork and your badge disagree.

How the Vipros 368 King II compares

Top of King line; 4.5" auto-index — that is what sets this machine apart on the spec sheet.

These machines are easy to mix up, and the difference matters when you are quoting a turret job. Against the other Vipros models we cover:

• Amada Vipros 357 — auto-index 2 A/I, control Amadan 04PC, era 1996-2003.
• Amada Vipros 358 King — tonnage 30-33 ton, era 1998-2003.
• Amada Vipros 2510 King — tonnage 22 ton, stations 31, auto-index 3 A/I.
• Amada Vipros 358 King II — era 1998-2003.
• Amada Vipros 358 Queen — the same on paper for turret purposes.
• Amada Vipros 345 — tonnage 30-33 ton, auto-index 2 A/I, control Fanuc 04PC.
• Amada Vipros 255 — tonnage 20 ton, stations 31, control Fanuc 18-P.
• Amada Vipros 357 Queen — auto-index 2 A/I.
• Amada Vipros 367 Queen — era 2001.
• Amada Vipros 368 King — tonnage 30-33 ton, era 1997-2005.
• Amada Vipros 368 Queen — the same on paper for turret purposes.
• Amada Vipros III Z3510NT — stations 45, control Fanuc NT, era 2003.
• Amada Vipros Z3510 Queen — era 2000s.
• Amada Vipros 568 — tonnage 55 ton, control Fanuc 04PC, era 1998.

Sleeving is the same process across all of them. What changes is scope, and scope follows station count and how hard the machine has been run.

The Fanuc 18P control

The Vipros 368 King II runs the Fanuc 18P. Many are still serviceable and there is no reason to touch a control that is doing its job. It is worth knowing that a FANUC retrofit is available if yours becomes a problem, and that it is far cheaper done alongside turret work than as its own project later.

Amada Vipros 368 King II documentation

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