Used Fanuc Machines and Controls We Buy

Who Makes Fanuc Machines and Controls

Fanuc equipment comes from FANUC Corporation of Japan. The name is an acronym for Fuji Automatic Numerical Control, and the company grew out of a numerical control project team formed in 1955 inside Fuji Tsushinki Manufacturing, the company now called Fujitsu. That team produced the first NC and servo systems in Japan's private sector in 1956, and in 1958 the first commercial FANUC NC went to Makino Milling Machine. FUJITSU FANUC LTD became independent of Fujitsu in 1972 and renamed itself FANUC LTD in 1982.

In 1984 FANUC moved its headquarters to a new campus at the foot of Mt. Fuji, in Oshino-mura, Yamanashi Prefecture. FANUC says it makes all of its products in its own automated factories: the headquarters campus, where CNCs, servo amplifiers, servo motors, robots, ROBOSHOT and ROBOCUT machines are assembled; Mibu, in Tochigi Prefecture, which also builds robot controllers; Tsukuba, in Ibaraki Prefecture, where ROBODRILL machines are assembled; and Hayato, in Kagoshima Prefecture, which makes sensors for its servo motors.

How FANUC Came to American Shops

FANUC USA Corporation was set up in 1977, the year FANUC began commercial production and shipment of robots with its ROBOT-MODEL 1. In 1982 FANUC and General Motors formed GMFanuc Robotics Corporation in the US, and in 1986 FANUC and General Electric formed GE Fanuc Automation Corporation, the joint venture behind the GE Fanuc name on the IC-series automation parts this hub lists. FANUC's history records that the joint venture with General Electric ended in 2009, when its factory-automation business in the Americas passed to FANUC America, and that FANUC America Corporation was formed in 2013 to bring its North and South American subsidiaries together. FANUC America is based in Rochester Hills, Michigan.

Fanuc CNC Milestones by Year

FANUC's own history page dates these control milestones (the page runs to 2023). It does not date every series a shop sees on its machines; the 0i, for one, has no entry:

The current CNC families on FANUC's product pages, as of this writing, are the Series 0i-MODEL F Plus, the 30i/31i/32i-MODEL B Plus and the Series 500i-A.

Fanuc's Current Controls, Robots and Machines

FANUC's product pages, as of this writing, list three CNC families: the Series 0i-MODEL F Plus, the 30i/31i/32i-MODEL B Plus and the newer Series 500i-A, plus Power Motion i-A Plus for general motion. The letter after 0i names the job: the 0i-MF Plus is FANUC's milling control, the 0i-TF Plus its turning control and the 0i-LF Plus its laser-cutting control. FANUC's servo pages list its i Series servo motors along with DD, linear and built-in spindle motors.

FANUC robots run from small arms with a 500-gram payload to large ones rated at 2.3 tons, and FANUC America says more than 1 million of its robots have been installed. FANUC has also renamed its big arms: its large-robot page lists the R-2000 in /C, /D and /E series, with model codes such as /165F-27C, and pairs them with the newer R-50iA controller, while FANUC America still sells the R-30iB Plus controller with its iPendant. The machine tools FANUC builds itself are the ROBODRILL compact machining center, a No.30 spindle-taper machine sold today as the α-DiB Plus in small, medium and large sizes, each in a standard or advanced version, and as the newer DC series; the ROBOCUT wire EDM, whose current α-CiC series has three models, the α-C400iC, α-C600iC and α-C800iC; and the ROBOSHOT all-electric injection molding machine.

What Decides the Offer on a Used Fanuc

The deciding detail depends on what you are selling. For a loose control, amplifier or motor it is the full part number and whether the unit powers up; FANUC America says it supports FANUC products for as long as they are in use, so a working older part still has somewhere to go. For a control on a machine it is the series: the 30i family, which FANUC began producing commercially in 2003, is a generation after the 16i, which went into commercial production in 1999. For a robot it is the arm model and its generation letter, the payload, and the controller and teach pendant that come with it, since FANUC sorts even one family, the R-2000, into separate /C, /D and /E series. For a ROBODRILL it is the generation and the version, and FANUC's advanced α-DiB Plus models change tools in 0.7 second. For a ROBOCUT it is the series and the table: the α-C400iC travels 400 x 300 mm in X and Y, the α-C800iC 800 x 600 mm.

FANUC America calls itself the only FANUC-authorized repair provider in the Americas. Its factory-trained technicians repair motors and printed circuit boards, it stocks new and refurbished replacement parts for CNCs and robots, it runs Robot Reapplication Services for arms moving to a new job, and it sells and integrates ROBOCUT machines through Methods Machine Tools. That network is the right call for equipment you are keeping. For a machine, robot or shelf of spares you are done with, we buy it outright, and a FANUC repair tag or service record is worth sending with the part numbers.

The Fanuc Parts and Machines We See Most

The first page of this hub reads more like a maintenance crib than a machine floor: A02B and A06B part numbers, AC and DC servo motors in several frame sizes, a base module, cable assemblies and a 16i-MA control, with ROBODRILL machines from several model years and a VTC250 machining center among them. That matches the counts further down this page, where the part-number families run well ahead of complete Fanuc-built machines. For a part, send the number off the label; for a machine, the model and serial from the data plate.

Fanuc Means Two Different Conversations

Fanuc is a machine builder and a control maker at once, so "I have a Fanuc" means three things. It can be a Fanuc-built machine: a Robodrill drill-tap center, a Robocut wire EDM, a Roboshot molding press, an ArcMate or LR Mate robot. It can be a control, drive, or servo on a shelf, still carrying a part number and still worth money. Or it can be somebody else's iron with a Fanuc control on the front, a Doosan, a Mori Seiki, a Makino, a Hyundai-Wia, the part of the market almost nobody serves cleanly. MTE buys all three. This hub is tagged Fanuc only, all 8,838 listings, so other builders sit in their own hubs. The split matters on the first call. A complete machine gets scoped on model, configuration, control generation, and spindle hours. A loose board gets scoped on its part number and whether it powers up.

What the 8,838 Fanuc Listings Actually Cover

Read the category split before assuming what a Fanuc page holds. Metal Cutting is the largest bucket at 6,320 listings, CNC Miscellaneous Machines follows at 1,236, CNC Drives and Motors at 648, and CNC Robots at 448. The tail after those four is short and specific: Vertical Machining Centers 78, Drilling and Tapping Centers 35, EDM Machines 31, Injection Molding 12, Automation and Pallet Systems 9, Grinding 5, Lathes 4, then single-digit rows for laser cutting, vertical turret lathes, gear machinery, rotary tables, generators, vertical boring mills, punching, and tool and cutter grinders. Nineteen categories, summing to the full 8,838. One more number says what kind of book this is: 8,249 distinct model strings across 8,838 listings, close to one unique identifier apiece. Of the listings that carry a stated build year, 3,044 of them, the span runs 1972 to 2026, so older iron and current iron both trade here.

The Fanuc-Built Machines: Robodrill and Robocut

Robodrill leads the machine side of this hub with 300 listings whose model string starts with Robodrill. It is a high-speed drill-tap and compact vertical machining center, and the buyers are aerospace, medical, and electronics shops that need short cycle times in a small footprint. The alpha-D frames are the ones to name, the D14, the volume-selling D21, and the larger D28, and the two details that move a Robodrill number are spindle speed and tool-magazine count. Robocut is the wire EDM side, 109 listings, and generation is what matters there, since an alpha-C400i, C600i, or C800i in the i-series B or C generation is not interchangeable in a buyer's head. The matching category rows are small and precise: Drilling and Tapping Centers 35, Vertical Machining Centers 78, EDM Machines 31. Jason Puuri, who owns MTE and its parent Superior Machine Tools in Lansing, prices these off the data plate and the hours himself.

Fanuc Robots, Roboshot, and Automation

The robot half of Fanuc is real inventory here, not an aside. CNC Robots is 448 listings and CNC Automation and Pallet Systems adds 9. ArcMate leads the robot families at 102 listings, LR Mate at 85, the collaborative CRX line at 23. The R-2000 appears across three generations that get quoted separately rather than lumped together: R-2000iA 16, R-2000iB 12, R-2000iC 6. Mid-payload and heavy arms fill in around them, M-710iC 12, M-900iA 5, M-900iB 2, M-20iA 3, M-10iD 4, plus a pair of SCARA listings and a pair of Paint Mate listings. Roboshot, the electric injection molding line, carries 12 listings, matching the injection molding category row exactly. For a seller the point is that a robot cell does not have to go somewhere else. Arc welding, material handling, collaborative, and heavy payload arms get quoted with the machine tools, controllers and teach pendants included, on one pickup schedule.

Loose Controls, Drives, and Servos Still Sell

Most brand pages have nothing to say to a maintenance manager with a rack of spare boards. This one does. CNC Drives and Motors is 648 listings on its own, and the part-number families run deeper. A06B, the servo and amplifier prefix, is the largest model family in the hub at 1,991 listings. A20B follows at 858, A16B at 546, A02B at 295, A03B at 155, A05B at 105, and A860 at 78, with smaller runs under A80L, A13B, A81L, A97L, A14B, A04B, and A17B. Control series appear the way shops write them: 31i 30, 18i 16, 16i 13, 21i 10, 32i 8, 30i 6, plus the 0i spelled two ways in the data, 46 listings one way, 42 the other. GE Fanuc automation is here too, 33 distinct IC-series part numbers across IC693, IC697, IC660, IC600, IC610, IC670, IC200, IC692, and IC754 prefixes. Surplus from a retrofit still sells.

Selling One Fanuc, a Cell, or a Whole Floor

Fanuc comes off a floor for predictable reasons. A shop steps up to a newer Robodrill or retrofits a control, and the displaced machine still cuts parts but no longer fits the plan. A contract ends and capacity gets right-sized. Two plants become one, or a move happens and the freight on older iron does not pencil out. An owner retires, or an estate settles a shop. A larger operation standardizes on one control generation and sells off the odd units. There is always the idle machine under power nobody has decided about, with surplus controls on the shelf behind it. The mechanics never change. MTE is the buyer, not a broker or a listing service, so no consignment and no listing. We can arrange rigging, freight and the pickup. Robonano and other Fanuc lines we do not currently list are still worth a call.