Kitamura Mycenter-H500i

The Kitamura Mycenter-H500i is a 500mm pallet horizontal machining center that brings Kitamura's precision manufacturing philosophy — including hand-scraped axis surfaces and direct-drive rotary table — to the productive workhorse HMC segment. Designed to compete with the Mazak HCN-5000, Okuma MB-5000HII, and DMG Mori NHX 5000, the H500i differentiates on long-term accuracy, surface finish quality, and the reliability of Kitamura's precision assembly methods.

The H500i offers X/Y/Z travels of 730 × 730 × 730mm around a 500 × 500mm square pallet, with a direct-drive B-axis rotary table providing 0.001° indexing resolution and full 4th-axis CNC capability. The direct-drive table eliminates gear backlash and improves B-axis positioning repeatability compared to worm-gear driven competitors, giving the H500i an accuracy edge that matters for tight-tolerance prismatic parts in aerospace and hydraulics. Maximum workpiece capacity is 800mm diameter by 900mm height at 600kg.

Power comes from a 15,000 rpm 40-taper Big Plus spindle producing 22 kW. Kitamura applies its hand-scraping process to the spindle head, column, and bed mating surfaces, creating the high-contact-area fit that maintains axis straightness and parallelism over years of production use. The 50-tool ATC supports complex jobs with large tool arrays. Rapids reach 60 m/min across all three linear axes.

The Mycenter-H500i's Arumatik-Mi CNC includes Kitamura's thermal compensation algorithms, high-speed servo tuning, and standard support for AICC (AI Contouring Control) for smooth toolpath execution during complex prismatic programs. Shops running high-mix production of precision housings, valve bodies, and aerospace structural components will find the H500i's combination of accuracy and productivity compelling at its price point of approximately $450,000 to $650,000 new.