CNC Family Breakdown

DMG MORI CLX: The Value Line Is Not Priced Like One

The DMG MORI CLX is sold as the value line, and on a new-machine quote it is. On the used market that relationship stops holding. In the one matched pair we could find it runs the other way: a 2019 CLX 350 asking 116,910 dollars against a same-year NLX 2500/700, a full chuck class larger, asking 109,500. Two asking prices, hours unstated on both, in two countries.

That is one pair, and we will hold it to that. But it is not an isolated oddity, it is what a market with no transaction feedback looks like. There are zero published auction results for any CLX variant, anywhere, and the five CLX asking prices we could find come from three sources, because one dealer supplied three of them.

This breakdown covers all six models and the version codes that decide what each one can do, what the number does and does not encode, the specs that go backwards as you add capability, how a CLX actually compares to an NLX of the same chuck class, and the dated control problem that sits under every used example.

The roster is six machines in two families

The CLX badge covers two architectures that have almost nothing in common. Four universal turning machines with a 12-station VDI turret, and two turn-mill machines where the turret is gone entirely, replaced by a swivelling B-axis carrying a compactMASTER spindle fed from a tool magazine.

DMG MORI's live turning index now lists exactly four: the CLX 350, CLX 450, CLX 450 TC and CLX 550 TC. On the regional sites we checked, requests for the CLX 550 or the CLX 750 product page land on the CLX series overview, which lists only the 350 and the 450, and the United States path for the CLX 750 returns a 404 outright. Neither discontinuation was ever announced, so the roster page is the only notice you get.

Designations that do not exist. There is no CLX 320 and no CLX 400: those are the max turning diameters of the 350 and the 450, routinely mistaken for model numbers. There is no CLX 650, no CLX 350 TC, and no CLX alpha, beta or gamma, because the Greek letters belong to CTX. A CLX 2500 was reported by trade press ahead of JIMTOF 2016 and never existed; the likeliest explanation is a confusion with the Japanese-built NLX 2500 or with the CTX 2500. And CLX has no long-bed suffix. There is no CLX equivalent of the NLX /700 and /1250 or the CTX gamma 1250, 2000 and 3000. Length is stepped by the model number instead.

The V-number is the machine, and the ladder is rigid

Every universal CLX was ordered as one of four version codes, and unusually for this class, DMG MORI defines them in print in the CLX catalogue rather than leaving them to trade convention.

There is no V2 and no V5. More usefully, the ladder is cumulative and strictly ordered. You cannot buy a Y-axis without driven tooling, and you cannot buy a counter spindle without both, at least as the catalogue prints it. Note that DMG MORI's current product pages present the Y-axis and the counter spindle as separate features without the version codes at all, so the test below is only as strong as the catalogue it comes from.

The free verification test

Because the ladder is ordered, a CLX with a sub-spindle always also has a Y-axis and driven tools. Any listing advertising a sub-spindle but no Y-axis is either wrong about the machine or is not describing a CLX at all. That takes ten seconds and it catches a real error class.

The number is a size class, and four rows prove it

The dealer shorthand is that the CLX number is the chuck or the swing. It is neither, and the brochure disproves it without any interpretation required.

It is not chuck size. The CLX 450 and CLX 550 take the same chuck range, and the catalogue reading we could confirm gives both a nominal 250 mm. Two model numbers, one chuck class. And the CLX 350's chuck is 210 mm, nowhere near 350.

It is not swing over bed. The same pair shares 700 mm. The 550 is the long-bed, higher-torque configuration of the same casting class, not a bigger machine in cross-section.

It is not max turning diameter. The 550 turns 480, not 550. The 350 turns 320. The 750 turns 700. Across the four turret machines the number overstates turning diameter every time, and not by a constant offset. The two TC models do not follow even that rule: the CLX 550 TC takes a workpiece of exactly 550 mm, while the CLX 450 TC turns 400.

And it does not survive crossing into CTX. A CLX 450 turns 400 mm; a CTX 450 turns 480 mm, and takes an optional spindle to 102 mm of bar where the CLX 450 stops at 80. A CLX 750 turns 1,290 mm long; a CTX 750 turns 2,040 mm. The same number, 750 mm more length. A CLX 450 is closer to a CTX 350 and a half than to a CTX 450.

One honest caveat: DMG MORI publishes no explanation of CLX numbering anywhere we could find. Not on any regional page, not in the catalogue, not in a press release. The reading above is inference from spec tables, not a statement of intent from the manufacturer.

The spec ladder, all four turret machines

Figures from CLX catalogue publication code P20180752_0819_EN, August 2019. Values in brackets are the V6 counter-spindle configuration, except on the turning diameter row where they are the figure with the Y-axis fitted.

Construction across all four: a 45 degree inclined cast iron bed with linear guideways, and a four-guideway design that lets the tailstock move without collision. That single line, linear guideways, is what separates a CLX from an NLX more cleanly than any number does. On ballscrews, be careful what you carry across models: DMG MORI states an IT 1 tolerance class in its February 2017 CLX 350 launch release, but the 2019 catalogue publishes only diameter and pitch, 32 by 10 mm on the 350, 40 by 10 on the 450 and 550 and 50 by 10 on the 750, and no accuracy class for any model.

Eleven specs that go the wrong way

1. The counter spindle costs 24 percent of your X travel on the CLX 350. X drops from 242.5 mm to 185 mm on V6. That is the harshest trade in the range, and the V6 loses Z as well, 540 down to 465 mm.

2. It costs 75 mm of Z on the CLX 450 too. 830 mm down to 755 mm on V6. A buyer sizing a shaft job off the headline 830 and then ordering a counter spindle is 75 mm short.

3. The Y-axis costs turning diameter on the CLX 450 and the CLX 550, and it is not optional. On the CLX 450, DMG MORI's own Famot release states a turning diameter with the Y-axis of 315 mm against the 400 mm headline, an 85 mm loss, and an earlier brochure prints the same pair. On the CLX 550 the catalogue prints 480 and 425 with a footnote reading V4 version with Y axis, so that 55 mm comes off too. A CLX 450 V4 or V6 is a 315 mm machine and a CLX 550 V4 or V6 is a 425 mm machine. Neither reduction is something a buyer can decline, and listings almost universally quote the headline.

4. The Y-axis costs 60 mm of turning diameter on the CLX 750. 700 mm on V1 and V3, 640 mm on V4 and V6. Stated by the brochure and by two separate DMG MORI press sources, which makes it the cleanest manufacturer-confirmed trade in the family.

5. The counter spindle costs you the turret size on the CLX 750. The base machine is 12 x VDI 50. The V6 is 12 x VDI 40. Less holder rigidity on the heaviest machine in the range, and an existing VDI 50 tool inventory will not fit a CLX 750 V6.

6. Buying a bigger CLX makes your milling slower. Driven tools run 5,500 rpm on the CLX 350 and 4,000 rpm on the 450, 550 and 750. The smallest machine has the fastest driven tools. Stepping up one size for part capacity costs 1,500 rpm, and small-diameter drilling is exactly where that hurts.

7. Buying a bigger CLX makes your turning much slower. 5,000 down to 4,000 down to 3,250 down to 2,000 rpm across the range. Expected for the size class, but the CLX 750 at 2,000 rpm is low enough that small-diameter finishing on it is genuinely compromised.

8. The headline turning diameters are not the factory's recommended working figures. The catalogue carries a separate recommended footnote: 250 mm on the CLX 350 against a 320 headline, and 300 mm on the CLX 450 against 400. That is 78 percent on the 350 and 75 percent on the 450. Keep both distinct from the Y-axis reductions above, which are a separate footnote, and on the CLX 450 come from a different document entirely. Nearly every used listing quotes the headline and none of them mention either figure.

9. Y is the slowest axis on every CLX. Rapids are 30 m/min in X and 30 to 36 in Z, but 22.5 m/min in Y on all four models. Y-heavy milling programs lose cycle time everywhere, not in one place.

10. The CLX 750 barely turns longer than the CLX 550. 1,290 mm against 1,225 mm. Sixty-five millimetres, for a machine 2,800 kg heavier and 1.5 square metres larger. The 750 buys diameter, torque and workpiece weight, not length. Anyone buying one for shaft length wants a CTX 750, which turns 2,040 mm.

11. The TC gives up almost all of its programmable tailstock range. A universal CLX 450 has an 800 mm tailstock stroke. The CLX 450 TC has 102.5 mm of hydraulic quill stroke against 1,100 mm of turning length, so the tailstock body has to be repositioned at setup. For long-shaft work in varied lengths, the cheaper universal machine is the more productive tool.

Two undated spec revisions, and why you measure instead of spec-sheet

Early CLX 350s may pass 51 mm bar, not 65. At launch in February 2017 DMG MORI stated 51 mm standard with 65 mm optional, corroborated by trade press and by the earlier brochure. The 2019 catalogue and the current product page both list 65 mm flat. A used early machine may be a 51 mm bar machine. Verify against the machine's own data sheet, never against today's web page.

Early CLX machines may have no direct measuring system on X and Y. The 2019 catalogue's wording is precise and revealing: all CLX machines are now equipped with a direct measuring system on X and Y as standard. The word "now" means it previously was not. For a used buyer that is a positioning-accuracy and thermal-drift difference between an early machine and a 2019-or-later one. The exact cut-over is not published, so it is a question to put to DMG MORI service with the machine number in hand.

There is also a broader, undated revision we are not going to resolve for you. Comparing an earlier CLX brochure against the 2019 catalogue, the CLX 450's Z travel reads 600 mm in one and 830 mm in the other, its tailstock travel 500 mm against 800 mm, and its weight roughly 4,950 kg against 5,900 kg. Those are not rounding differences. Either the CLX 450 was substantially revised mid-life, or one document restates the table differently. Measure a used CLX 450. Do not spec-sheet it.

CLX 450 against NLX 2500, at the same chuck size

This is the comparison that decides most CLX purchases, and the gap is wider than the badge suggests. Both are 10-inch chuck class machines.

Three gaps do the work. Torque is roughly double in the NLX's favour at the same chuck size, and nearly triple with the 12-inch spindle. Driven-tool torque is four to five times higher, with three times the speed and up to eight more stations. And the way systems are different in kind: linear rails against box ways, which is a damping and heavy-cut decision, not a price one.

What the CLX genuinely gives back: slightly more X and Z travel than an NLX /700, a smaller footprint, and a lower price level. That last one is DMG MORI's own positioning, not ours. Launching the CTX 350 the company described it as combining the price level of the CLX series with CTX alpha performance, which tells you exactly where CLX sits in its maker's own mind.

One thing to treat with suspicion in a listing: we found no DMG MORI source offering MAPPS on a CLX. A trade-press launch report claimed MAPPS IV as a CLX control option and no manufacturer material supports it. Every DMG MORI source says Siemens 840D solutionline or Fanuc iSeries. The same report claimed a Heidenhain TNC 620 option, which we could not verify on any CLX either and which most likely belongs to the CMX milling machines announced alongside.

What CLX replaced, and what has quietly replaced CLX

CLX and CMX replaced the entry-level EcoTurn and EcoMill machines from around September 2016. That matters on the used market for one practical reason: an EcoTurn 450 is the CLX 450's direct predecessor, and it is one of the two machines most often mislabelled as a CLX.

Going the other way, DMG MORI has been unwinding the line. In January 2023 the CTX 350 launched as an explicit replacement for the CLX 350 and the CTX alpha 500. In September 2023 the CTX 450 and CTX 550 arrived in what DMG MORI called the premium segment of universal turning, and the CTX 550's work envelope, 480 mm by 1,225 mm on 102 mm bar, is identical to the discontinued CLX 550's with a much stronger drivetrain behind it.

One conflict we cannot resolve. DMG MORI said in 2023 that the CTX 350 replaces the CLX 350, yet the CLX 350 still sits on the live turning index with a full spec page as of this writing. One of the two is stale, or the CLX 350 continued in some regions after the CTX 350 launched. We are reporting it rather than picking.

The control is the dated risk, and it has calendar dates

Every used CLX universal turning machine we could document runs either Siemens SINUMERIK 840D solutionline or Fanuc iSeries on a 19 inch panel, while current CLX machines ship SINUMERIK ONE with CELOS X on a 24 inch panel instead. That is a hardware and software generation boundary rather than a version bump. DMG MORI does not publish the date of the changeover on the universal CLX, so treat the boundary as real but undated, and confirm which generation a specific machine carries from the machine itself.

The Fanuc option was only added at EMO in September 2017, and those machines were built at Tortona in Italy rather than Pleszew in Poland. So a pre-September-2017 CLX is a Siemens machine, and a Fanuc CLX has a different plant and a different parts history behind it.

The part that has actual dates on it: Siemens has begun retiring the 840D sl. More than 650 assemblies moved to spare-parts-only status on 1 October 2024, including four NCU models, and 42 further panel and HMI items on 1 October 2025, including the OP 010, 012, 015A and 022 operator panels and the MCP 466C-M and MCP 458-IE-T machine control panels. Siemens' nominal commitment runs about ten years from that status change, to roughly 2034, but the notice is explicit that this is stock-dependent and that low-value accessories can go end-of-life early.

Do this before you price it

Photograph and write down the NCU, PCU and operator-panel part numbers off the electrical cabinet of any CLX you inspect, then check each one against Siemens lifecycle status. A panel already at end-of-life is a dated liability with a real number attached, and not one CLX listing we read during this research mentions the control generation at all.

Assume no retrofit path across the SINUMERIK ONE boundary until DMG MORI service confirms one in writing. CELOS X apps and 3D shopfloor programming are not coming to an 840D sl machine.

There is almost no used market, and what there is misprices itself

We are not going to build a price band for this family, because there is nothing honest to build one from, and the reasons are more useful to you than a band would be.

Supply is roughly 20 to 25 distinct machines worldwide after de-duplication, and under a dozen in every individual model. The CLX 450 is the deepest at nine to eleven units, the CLX 350 next at five or six, and the discontinued 550 and 750 barely register at one or two each. No used CLX 550 TC exists anywhere, which is expected given a 2024 unveiling.

The number that matters most to an American buyer: we could place zero currently offered CLX 350 or CLX 450 in North America. The only US-located machines in the whole family were CLX 450 TCs, and of those, two were already sold. Domestic supply of this family is effectively one near-new turn-mill machine.

There are no auction results. Not thin, none. We searched the major US auction houses and aggregators, the European platforms including one named for CNC auctions, and the liquidator archives, and found no published hammer price for any CLX variant. Two European auction listings, a 2019 CLX 350 V6 with a gantry loader and a 2017 CLX 450 V4, both now read that the offer has ended with no bid history and no result. They ended unresolved as price signals.

And the asking prices contradict each other. One dealer listed three 2017 CLX 350s: 9,301 hours at 65,749 euros, 3,895 hours at 70,611 euros, and 2,778 hours with a bar feeder at 56,026 euros. Price moves inversely to condition and inversely to included automation. Separately, a 2023 CLX 350 with 750 hours asks 78,000 euros while that 2017 with 9,301 hours asks 65,749. Six years and 8,500 hours compress into about 12,000 euros.

That is not noise to average out. It is what a model with no transaction feedback looks like. For comparison, one marketplace we surveyed carried over 700 used Haas lathe listings against a single CLX, and while listings are asking prices rather than sales, a seller pricing into a pool that deep gets corrected by the market in a way that a seller with the only CLX on the platform never does.

Duplication is severe and we can show it. One 2018 CLX 350 V4 in central Europe appeared five times, including three entries on a single platform quoting 5,080, 5,080 and 5,500 hours for the same machine. One North American CLX 450 TC appeared across four separate URLs. Assume any two CLX listings you find are the same machine until you prove otherwise, and resolve hours and year from the serial plate rather than the advert.

Five listing errors we found on real CLX adverts

A 42-slot tool magazine on a machine with no magazine. A 2023 CLX 350 V3 was described on two separate platforms as having 42 tool stations. The CLX 350 has a 12-station VDI 30 turret and no magazine at all. The error propagated with the listing.

Thirteen holders in a twelve-station turret. A CLX 450 listing claimed 13 rotary tool holders. Physically impossible as described.

A three-axis lathe with a Y-axis. A CLX 450 V4 was headlined as a three-axis turning machine while the same page listed Y travel of plus or minus 60 mm. By DMG MORI's own code, V4 means turning plus milling plus Y.

A CLX 750 carrying an internal part number for a CLX 550. On the dealer's own product page. Model identity confusion at the source.

A CTX served under a CLX web address. One marketplace URL containing the words CLX 450 TC returned a page for a 2009 CTX beta 800 V4. That platform recycles listing addresses, so a search-indexed URL is not evidence that the machine in the address ever existed there.

The year screen, and what an old CLX actually is

Launch dates give you a hard identity test that needs no expertise at all.

The observed used population matches that calendar cleanly, which is a good sign for data quality: no CLX 350 earlier than 2017, no CLX 750 earlier than 2021 despite a 2019 launch. The most likely true identity of a too-old CLX is a CTX, which shares the letter pattern and the 840D control. Second most likely is the EcoTurn 450 or a NEF.

What to check on a used one

The control, before anything mechanical. This is the reversal of normal advice and it is deliberate. Part numbers off the cabinet, checked against Siemens lifecycle status. On this family the electronics have a published expiry conversation and the iron does not.

Which version code the machine actually is. Do not accept V4 or V6 off the advert; listings misuse the codes constantly. Confirm the Y-axis physically exists and positions repeatably, and confirm whether the tailstock or a counter spindle occupies the far end.

Turning diameter, measured, not quoted. If the machine has a Y-axis, the working turning diameter is 315 mm on a CLX 450, not 400, and 640 mm on a CLX 750, not 700. Check the swing against your actual largest part.

All twelve turret stations, indexed hot and cold. Index repeatability, clamp force, and hydraulic integrity. VDI 30 on the 350, VDI 40 on the 450 and 550, VDI 50 on the 750 except the V6, which drops to VDI 40. Confirm the interface before you assume your holders fit.

The spindle, understanding what a failure costs. The main spindle is an integrated motor spindle on three bearings and the counter spindle is an ISM-series motor spindle with active cooling. There is no belt and no gearbox to inspect, which sounds like good news and is actually the risk: a failure is a motor-spindle exchange, not a bearing swap on a cheap cartridge. Run cold and hot runout, watch growth and vibration, and check the cooling circuit.

Direct measuring on X and Y, present or absent. Standard from some point around 2019 and not before. Ask DMG MORI service with the machine number rather than guessing from the year.

Driven tool orientation and the tool library. One CLX 450 owner documented that axially mounted holders needed a counter-clockwise command to turn clockwise, because the holder gearing reverses direction. That was a tool-library and post-processor matter, correctly resolved by the CAM vendor, and not a machine fault. But on a used machine with no documentation it is a real commissioning cost. Find out which holders come with it.

The parameter backup and the ladder, on media, before the machine moves. The control is a genuine Siemens or Fanuc, but the PMC ladder, the parameter set and the machine data are the builder's. That is the part you cannot buy anywhere else.

What we could not find, and you should know we looked. There is no CLX-specific failure literature in public. No manufacturer service bulletin, no rebuilder case study on a CLX, and no CLX thread on any machinist forum we could reach. The one independent North American service firm that lists CLX 350, 450 and 550 coverage documents its actual DMG MORI turning failures on NLX, CTX and NTX machines instead. That cuts both ways: you are not locked to the OEM for service, but nobody has a CLX track record to hand you either.

Where it is built, and what that means for parts

The CLX catalogue states it plainly: the series is produced at DMG MORI's Graziano plant in Tortona, Italy and its Famot plant in Pleszew, Poland. Pleszew is the larger of the two for this line, a site DMG MORI describes as the biggest machine tool factory in Poland at over 58,000 square metres and up to 2,000 finished machines a year. Fanuc-control CLX machines came from Tortona.

So the CLX is a European-built value machine with a global parts network behind it, which is a materially different proposition from the Japanese-built NLX. DMG MORI claims more than 200 field service technicians in North America, a 24/7 hotline, and a North American parts stock in Dallas, along with in-region spindle rebuild capability in Davis, California. We could not independently verify any of those figures, and no guaranteed parts-availability window after end of production is published for the CLX or for anything else.

DMG MORI does not state where the two TC models are built. The catalogue statement above covers the four universal turning machines. The Pleszew site page names CLX turning centres among its products; no DMG MORI page we could reach names a build plant for the CLX 450 TC or CLX 550 TC at all. Since plant of origin affects parts logistics, lead time and resale, settle it per machine from the serial number rather than by assumption.

One genuine blank worth naming: we found no documented complaint that CLX parts or support are worse than the Japanese lines. That is an absence of evidence, not a clean bill of health. The forum where such reports would live blocked us.

Advice that costs us the sale

If you are shopping the CLX because it is the value line, check the price against the alternatives before you get attached. On the numbers we could observe, a 2019 CLX 350 asked 116,910 dollars. That is above a 2022 Haas ST-25Y or ST-35Y at 109,900, well above a 2022 Okuma GENOS L2000E at 91,500, roughly level with a 2022 Doosan Lynx 2100LMSB at 120,000, and above a same-year NLX 2500/700 a full chuck class larger at 109,500. It is one data point per comparison, and we are telling you that plainly, but the direction is consistent and it is not the direction the new-machine ladder predicts.

And if you are in North America, understand what you are shopping. There is currently no domestic used supply of the CLX 350 or CLX 450. Importing means freight, duty, commissioning and a control whose panel hardware is already in spare-parts-only status, against a machine whose asking price is not discounted for any of that.

Where a used CLX does make sense. A V1 or V4 with a tailstock, bought right, is a well-built European lathe on linear rails with a small footprint and a live service network, and the CLX 350 has the fastest driven tooling in its own family. If you already run Siemens 840D and have the shop knowledge, a low-hour CLX at a sensible number is a sound machine. The problem is not the iron. It is that this market has no mechanism to tell you what a sensible number is.

If you want a DMG MORI turning family with real transaction depth and real failure history behind it, the NLX 2500 and the CTX line both have what the CLX has not accumulated yet.

Resell CNC Take

We appraise machines for a living, and the CLX is the plainest example we have run into of a market that cannot price itself. The iron is fine. It is a European-built lathe on linear rails with a rigid cast bed and a real service network behind it.

What is not fine is the information around it. Twenty-odd machines worldwide, no auction results anywhere, asking prices that move backwards against hours, and a control generation with published retirement dates. If somebody brings us a CLX to appraise, the first two things we look at are the version code and the panel part numbers, in that order, and neither of them is in the advert.

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