Amada Vipros III Z3510NT
Turret Sleeving

Amada Vipros III Z3510NT at a glance

Era

2003

Tonnage

33 ton

Stations

45

Turret

Thick turret

Auto-Index

4 A/I

Control

Fanuc NT

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 III Z3510NT from 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 Nothing about its capability has been superseded for most sheet metal work.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 III Z3510NT turret wears

At 33 tons, the Vipros III Z3510NT 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 45 stations, a Vipros III Z3510NT turret usually shows wear concentrated in the positions running the most common tooling. Sleeving does not have to be all-or-nothing — the worn stations are done and the rest are left as they are.

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 III Z3510NT 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 III Z3510NT 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 III Z3510NT carries 4 auto-index stations of its 45. 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 III Z3510NT a thick or thin turret machine?

The Vipros III Z3510NT 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.

How the Vipros III Z3510NT compares

NT control upgrade of Z3510 — 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 — stations 58, auto-index 2 A/I, control Amadan 04PC.
• Amada Vipros 358 King — tonnage 30-33 ton, stations 58, control Fanuc 18P.
• Amada Vipros 2510 King — tonnage 22 ton, stations 31, auto-index 3 A/I.
• Amada Vipros 358 King II — stations 58, control Fanuc 18P, era 1998-2003.
• Amada Vipros 358 Queen — the same on paper for turret purposes.
• Amada Vipros 345 — tonnage 30-33 ton, stations 58, auto-index 2 A/I.
• Amada Vipros 255 — tonnage 20 ton, stations 31, control Fanuc 18-P.
• Amada Vipros 357 Queen — stations 58, auto-index 2 A/I, control Fanuc 18P.
• Amada Vipros 367 Queen — stations 58, control Fanuc 18P, era 2001.
• Amada Vipros 368 King — tonnage 30-33 ton, stations 58, control Fanuc 18P.
• Amada Vipros 368 King II — stations 58, control Fanuc 18P, era 1999-2003.
• Amada Vipros 368 Queen — the same on paper for turret purposes.
• Amada Vipros Z3510 Queen — stations 58, control Fanuc 18P, 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 NT control

The Vipros III Z3510NT runs the Fanuc NT. 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 III Z3510NT documentation

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