Mazak Turning & Multi-Tasking (Integrex / QT)

Mazak’s turning story is MAZATROL-first. The QT (Quick Turn) series and the Integrex multi-tasking line are designed to be programmed conversationally for the bulk of everyday work — a turned shaft or flanged bushing goes from print to program at the control, in units, without a line of G-code — with EIA/ISO available on the same control for the complex end of the spectrum. Multi-tasking is where Mazak is strongest, and it is also where programming discipline matters most: an Integrex with a full B-axis milling spindle, a second spindle, and a lower turret is several machines sharing one work envelope, and the programming decisions (MAZATROL vs CAM-posted EIA, where work transfers, what gets simulated) decide whether “done in one” is a productivity win or a crash risk. This page covers both languages on the turning side; the unit model itself is documented in depth in MAZATROL Conversational Programming and the G-code dialect in Mazak EIA/ISO Programming.

MAZATROL Turning Programs

Where the machines sit: the QT series is Mazak’s bread-and-butter turning line — two-axis lathes up through configurations with milling capability, C axis, and second spindles — and the Integrex is the full multi-tasking line, a turning machine and a machining center merged into one envelope. Current machines carry the Smooth control generation (SmoothG, SmoothAi), which runs the same two languages side by side as the machining centers: MAZATROL units and EIA/ISO G-code, sharing one program directory and one tool table.

A MAZATROL turning program uses the same skeleton the machining-center article documents — a common unit at the program head, a sequence of machining units, an end unit — and the same three-level hierarchy inside each machining unit: the unit line (the machining intention and its top-line data), a tool sequence the control auto-develops, and a shape sequence holding the geometry. What changes on a lathe is the vocabulary of units and the shape data they carry.

At the head of the program, the common unit defines the material and the workpiece blank — on a turning machine that means the stock as the lathe sees it: outside diameter, inside diameter for tube stock, and length. This blank definition is load-bearing, not documentation: the control uses it to compute how many roughing passes a turning unit needs, where air-cutting can be skipped, and what the graphics check treats as remaining material. The machining units that follow are turning units, described here by function — the exact unit names and screens are dialect-specific, so verify them against the manual for the control generation on your machine (SmoothAi and SmoothG share a unit language; older Mazatrol generations differ) and treat these descriptions as functional, not as on-screen labels:

The shape sequence of a bar-turning unit is where turning MAZATROL earns its keep. Instead of writing a roughing cycle and repeating the profile for the finish pass, you enter the finished contour once — diameters, lengths, tapers, radii, chamfers read straight off the print — and the control generates the roughing passes from the blank down to the contour plus finish stock, then the finish pass along it. Cutting conditions come from the same machinery as on the mill side: the material in the common unit plus registered tool data drive [AUTO SET] surface speeds and feeds, editable per tool-sequence row.

A simple turned part — say a stepped shaft with a relief groove and a threaded end, cut off from bar — goes together conversationally like this:

1. Define the stock. In the common unit, set the material (the same pre-registered material menu the mill article shows) and the blank: bar OD, length, and how far it sticks out of the chuck. Everything downstream — pass counts, auto conditions, the graphics check — keys off this.
2. Face the end. Add a facing unit; give it the depth to clean up. The control develops the tool and the passes.
3. Rough and finish the OD. Add a bar-turning unit and enter the finished profile as a shape sequence: each step diameter and length, the chamfers, the corner radii. The control computes roughing passes from the blank, leaves finish stock, and finishes the contour — one unit, both operations.
4. Cut the groove. Add a grooving unit with the groove position, width, and diameter at the bottom. The tool sequence develops around the registered groove tool’s insert width.
5. Thread. Add a threading unit with the thread’s lead, major/minor diameters, and length (more below). The control generates the pass schedule.
6. Cut off. Add the cutoff operation at the part length, close with the end unit, and run the tool-path check before cutting — the same mandatory graphics verification the MAZATROL article describes.

Six entries, no motion code, and the program is self-documenting on the screen — the next operator reads “face, turn, groove, thread, cut off” down the unit list, not a wall of G-code. On machines with a second spindle, the program extends past the cutoff: the operations are organized per spindle, with the transfer between them, so the back-side facing and finishing continue as units against the picked-off part rather than as a separate program (see the Integrex section below).

Everything else the MAZATROL article documents carries over: MANUAL PROGRAM units splice raw EIA/ISO into the unit list where a unit can’t express a move, subprogram units call full EIA programs (the standard route for CAM-posted milling on an Integrex), [AUTO SET] fills cutting conditions from the material and tool data, and a MAZATROL program remains structured control data — not portable text you can email to another brand of control.

The mill-side cautions carry over unchanged, and two bite harder on a lathe:

• Turning tools must be fully registered. Auto-developed contour passes are computed from the registered insert geometry — nose radius, tip orientation, insert width on groove and cutoff tools. A tool registered with the wrong tip orientation cuts a contour that gauges wrong everywhere a taper or radius meets a diameter.
• The blank definition must match the real bar. Roughing pass counts and the interference model both come from it. A blank entered smaller than the actual stock means the first pass takes a much heavier cut than the control planned.
• Graphics-check every program before cutting — the same mandatory verification the MAZATROL article describes, with more geometry in the envelope to get wrong.

EIA/ISO on Mazak Lathes

The EIA/ISO side of a Mazak lathe follows Fanuc-style lathe conventions. If you can program a Fanuc lathe you can read a Mazak EIA turning program — the working vocabulary is covered in Fanuc Turning Programming, and the Mazak-specific dialect (program storage, macro variables, decimal-point rules, the EIA↔MAZATROL calling rules including CONTI. = 1 on the END unit) is covered in Mazak EIA/ISO Programming rather than re-taught here. The shape of the dialect:

One caveat from that article matters even more on a lathe. MAZATROL and EIA programs share one program directory and one tool table — the two languages are not sandboxed from each other on tool data. On a turning machine the shared data goes beyond length and wear offsets:

• Nose radius — used by MAZATROL when it generates contour passes and by EIA through nose-radius compensation. Edit it for a MAZATROL job and every EIA program calling the same tool now compensates differently.
• Tip orientation — which way the insert’s cutting point faces (OD vs ID, left vs right hand). Both languages need it to know which side of the nose radius is actually cutting; wrong orientation gauges wrong on every taper and radius.
• Insert width on groove and cutoff tools — MAZATROL develops groove passes from it; an EIA program written for a different insert width cuts a different groove.

Treat the tool table as machine state, not per-program data: whichever language touches a tool last defines what both languages cut with next.

Multi-Tasking on Integrex

An Integrex is not a lathe with live tools. A live-tool lathe carries small driven cutters in turret stations, good for cross-holes and flats. An Integrex carries a full milling spindle on a B axis — machining-center-class power and tool capacity, tiltable through its swivel range — plus, depending on configuration, a lower turret for simultaneous or opposed-tool turning and a second spindle so the part can be picked up and the back side finished without leaving the machine. That is the “done in one” proposition: bar goes in, a complete part — turned, milled, drilled, threaded, both ends — comes out.

A done-in-one job lays out as processes around the transfer — conceptually, whatever language each block is written in:

PROCESS 1 - main spindle
face / center drill
rough + finish OD contour
groove, thread
mill: cross-holes, flats (C axis / B axis)   <- MAZATROL units or EIA subprogram
TRANSFER
second spindle advances, synchronizes, grips
cutoff (part now held by spindle 2)
PROCESS 2 - second spindle
face the cutoff end to length
finish back-side contour
back-side milling as required

The programming implications are what a shop evaluating one should weigh:

• Work transfer between spindles. The handoff splits the program into a main-spindle process and a second-spindle process with a transfer between them. The sequence is always some variant of: second spindle advances and synchronizes speed with the main spindle; it grips the part; the part is cut off (bar work) or the main chuck releases (chucked work); the second spindle retracts with the part; back-side work continues. Workpiece zero, blank state, and chucking all change at that handoff — the program (conversational or posted) must model the part as it exists after transfer, not as raw stock, and the back-side zero is typically the freshly cut-off face.
• The B-axis tool plane. With the milling spindle tilted, a milling operation runs on a working plane defined by the B angle rather than a fixed machine plane. Face work, cylinder work through the C axis, and angled features each put the tool in a different orientation, and tool length now acts along the tilted axis. This is exactly the class of bookkeeping that controls handle well and hand-editing handles badly — which is why hand-tuned G-code is rare on the milling side of an Integrex.
• The lower turret is a second process. On machines equipped with one, the lower turret runs its own tool sequence in parallel with the upper spindle — balanced (pinch) turning on the same diameter, or independent work on the second-spindle part while the milling spindle works the main. The two processes coordinate through synchronization points; the scheduling of who waits for whom is a first-class programming decision, because an unbalanced split leaves half the machine idle.
• Conversational vs CAM+EIA. MAZATROL remains the right tool for the turning content and for prismatic milling on the face and cylinder — the point/line/face unit families through the C axis. But most real Integrex 5-axis work — simultaneous B/C contouring, sculpted surfaces, impeller-class parts — comes from CAM through a machine-specific post as EIA/ISO, often called as a subprogram from a MAZATROL main program that handles the setup, turning, and transfer. The post matters: it must know this machine’s kinematics, turret clearances, and transfer scheme, not just “a Mazak.”
• Collision awareness. Two spindles, a tilting milling head, and possibly a lower turret share one envelope, and the expensive collisions are between things a 2D mental model doesn’t track — the milling spindle body and the chuck, the lower turret and the tailstock, the B head and the part during transfer. The Smooth control’s simulation and interference checking is the backstop, and it is only as good as its inputs: the blank in the common unit, TOOL DATA that matches the real tooling (holder shapes included), and accurate chuck/fixture definitions. On an Integrex, running the graphics check is not a formality — it is the step that pays for the machine’s insurance.

The practical upshot for a shop evaluating an Integrex: budget for the CAM system and post as part of the machine, not as an afterthought. The machine’s ceiling is set less by its axes than by whether the programming pipeline — MAZATROL for the turning and setup, verified posts for the 5-axis milling, simulation inputs kept honest — is actually in place. A shop that runs an Integrex on MAZATROL alone gets an excellent turn-mill; the 5-axis half of the purchase price stays parked until the CAM side exists.

Thread Cutting

Conversationally, threading is a unit like any other: you specify the thread by its data and the control generates the synchronized passes, depth-per-pass degression, and pullout. The inputs, by function:

The thread spec reads like the callout on the print, which is the point: nobody should be hand-calculating pass depths at the control in 2026.

On the EIA side, threading is the Fanuc-style G76 multi-pass cycle — and note this is the lathe G76: as the EIA/ISO article warns, on the machining-center side of the house G76 is a fine-boring cycle, so the number means threading only in a turning context. An M20 × 2.5 external thread in the two-block form:

(M20 X 2.5 EXTERNAL THREAD)
G97 S800 M03          ; fixed RPM for threading - never G96
G00 X22. Z6.          ; start clear of the OD, 2+ leads ahead of the thread
G76 P021060 Q100 R0.05
; P: 02 finish passes, 1.0-lead chamfer, 60 deg angle
; Q: minimum cut depth 0.100  R: finish allowance 0.05
G76 X16.93 Z-25. P1534 Q400 F2.5
; X: minor dia  Z: thread end  P: thread height 1.534
; Q: first-pass depth 0.400  F: lead 2.5
G00 X50. Z50.         ; retract

Verify the P/Q/R word formats against the manual for your machine before trusting a converted program — the two-block vs one-block G76 formats and the meaning of the packed P word are exactly the kind of dialect detail that shifts between controls. Two practicalities that apply in either language:

• Thread under fixed RPM. Constant surface speed would change spindle speed as X changes, and the thread depends on a locked speed/feed relationship. Every pass must also start from the same Z so the passes track the same helix.
• Leave room to accelerate. Start each pass at least a couple of leads ahead of the thread so the axis is synchronized to the spindle before it reaches the first full-depth flank, and account for the pullout at the end — an undercut on the print exists for exactly this reason.

Choosing MAZATROL vs EIA for Turning Work

The decision guidance from the two Mazak articles, specialized for the turning side:

The mixed pattern is the Mazak norm, not the exception: a MAZATROL main program for the turning and setup, EIA subprograms for the posted or parameterized content, one shared tool table underneath both — with the calling rules the EIA/ISO article documents.

See Also

• MAZATROL Conversational Programming (SmoothAi) — the unit model, tool/shape sequences, and auto cutting conditions in depth
• Mazak EIA/ISO (G-Code) Programming — the G-code dialect, user macros, and EIA↔MAZATROL interop rules
• Mazak Control Guide — control operation, screens, and offsets
• Fanuc Turning Programming — the lathe G-code conventions the Mazak EIA side follows

References

• Yamazaki Mazak, MAZATROL SmoothG / SmoothAi Programming Manuals (MAZATROL Program) for turning and multi-tasking machines.
• Yamazaki Mazak, MAZATROL SmoothG / SmoothAi Programming Manuals (EIA/ISO Program) for turning and multi-tasking machines.
• Yamazaki Mazak, MAZATROL SmoothAi / SmoothG Operating Manual.