Used Heller Group Machines We Buy

The Nürtingen Company Behind Heller

The machining centers sold as Heller are built by Gebr. HELLER Maschinenfabrik GmbH of Nürtingen, Germany. Hermann Heller founded the business in 1894, first as a trading and tool business; HELLER dates its first machines, thread-cutting machines and cold circular saws, to 1898, and in 1900 the company was entered in the commercial register under the Heller brothers' names.

The Heller family ran the firm across generations; HELLER's history has the third generation, Hubert and Berndt Heller, taking over management in the 1960s. Its own timeline now ends on a new owner: in 2026 DN Solutions, the Korean machine tool builder, acquired HELLER.

Where Heller Machining Centers Are Built

HELLER lists 4 production facilities: Nürtingen in Germany, Troy in Michigan, Sorocaba in Brazil and Changzhou in China. The Changzhou plant opened in 2013.

The US business began in 1982 in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, mainly importing and servicing crankshaft milling machines. HELLER moved to Troy, Michigan in 1992 and built its US headquarters and production facility there in 1995. HELLER says the Troy site, with more than 110 employees, now builds the full range of machining centers for North America, so the Heller in your shop could have come from Michigan just as easily as from Germany.

Heller's Horizontal Series and Their Controls

HELLER's H and HF series are horizontal machining centers. The H series is the 4-axis line, with a pallet changer as standard, in sizes from the H 2000 up to the H 16000; HELLER offers Siemens or Fanuc controls on it, with the Siemens SINUMERIK ONE standard on the H 2000 to H 10000. The HF series adds 5-axis machining in a horizontal layout, with either a pallet changer (APC) or table loading (FLEX), and the F series carries its fifth axis in the tool. The MC range covers 4- and 5-axis work.

Alongside the machining centers, HELLER builds crankshaft and camshaft production systems: the RFK for external and internal milling of crankshafts, the DRZ for turn-chasing crankshafts, and the RFN for external milling of camshafts.

Heller Machine Lines by Year Introduced

The dates below, for the lines that turn up used today, come from HELLER's company history. Its timeline runs to 2026; the newest series it dates is the HF series of 2016.

From HELLER's company history on its US site (us.heller.biz).

What Moves the Price of a Used Heller

The series and size on the plate come first, because a BEA, a line HELLER put into series production in 1982, and a recent HF are different machines. The control is the next question: HELLER's own uniPro controls ran on its older centers, the uniPro NC 80 on the BEA and the uniPro CNC 90 on the MC range, while today's H series ships with a Siemens or a Fanuc control. HELLER also sells a control retrofit to the SINUMERIK 840D sl, so a plate year alone does not tell you what is on the panel.

After that come the pallet changer and any pallet storage, the condition of the machining units, and the tooling that goes with the machine.

Heller Rebuilds and Retrofits, or Selling Outright

HELLER keeps older machines running through its own service arm. It offers rebuilds, done on the owner's premises or at a HELLER site, and retrofits that range from a control retrofit to a complete machine retrofit with all wearing parts replaced. HELLER added rebuild depth in 2006 when it bought GSN Maschinen-Anlagen-Service, a Rottenburg am Neckar firm that specializes in machine rebuilds and overhauls.

That route suits a Heller you mean to keep in production. If you would rather turn one into cash, we will purchase it ourselves; paperwork from a HELLER rebuild or retrofit is worth sending along.

Not Every Heller Listing Is a Heller Machine Tool

A few listings filed under Heller here carry MK-style model names that match reflow ovens, not machine tools. Ovens of that kind come from Heller Industries of Florham Park, New Jersey, a maker of SMT reflow and curing ovens whose own site lists MK5 and MK7 convection reflow ovens. Heller Industries is a separate company from the Nürtingen machine tool builder, and an oven gets scoped on its own terms.