Anti Haas bashers

[Oldwrench]

What I don't get is why anyone in their right mind would buy a used Haas for cash money instead of a drastically more capable Japanese machine for a similar amount

I have no doubt that "drastically more capable" (whatever that means) is important for a job shop, but if you buy a machine for a single purpose it needs to be efficient at that purpose and no more. As for buying used, nobody has to pay cash for a used machine. Financing conserves your working capital, which is an advantage no matter how expensive or cheap the machine; it's all relative to your cash situation. Right now with inflation looming I would say it makes more sense to go into debt, get the machine on your floor, and pay it off with less-valuable dollars later.

...a belief that Japanese machines are expensive when they break and I believe that can be true if you just call the dealer and tell them to red label the parts

Jap machines are expensive when they break, certainly relative to a Haas (been there, done that). I have bought Haas spindle cooling fans at Grainger, which is sure not gonna happen with a used Matsuura. Also, when a Haas needs parts the tech shows up with the parts in his van. I am not personally happy with the control-upgrade thing but so far our machines old enough to potentially need one have paid for themselves so many times over they don't owe this company another hour.

Obsolescence is inevitable. I am guilty of phasing out older products myself, but after the second or third irate customer who bitched about not being able to repair his 20-year-old race car steering rack for ten bucks like in 1999 my sympathy was exhausted. I doubt Gene Haas would listen to me bitch about essentially the same thing. JMO; YRMV...

 

[Mud]

MotionGuru had one he was building a retrofit control on, I wonder if he finished it?
Anyone here have his email? I did, and probably still do but can't remember which one it is.

 

[Garwood]

I have no doubt that "drastically more capable" (whatever that means) is important for a job shop, but if you buy a machine for a single purpose it needs to be efficient at that purpose and no more. As for buying used, nobody has to pay cash for a used machine. Financing conserves your working capital, which is an advantage no matter how expensive or cheap the machine; it's all relative to your cash situation. Right now with inflation looming I would say it makes more sense to go into debt, get the machine on your floor, and pay it off with less-valuable dollars later.



Jap machines are expensive when they break, certainly relative to a Haas (been there, done that). I have bought Haas spindle cooling fans at Grainger, which is sure not gonna happen with a used Matsuura. Also, when a Haas needs parts the tech shows up with the parts in his van. I am not personally happy with the control-upgrade thing but so far our machines old enough to potentially need one have paid for themselves so many times over they don't owe this company another hour.

Obsolescence is inevitable. I am guilty of phasing out older products myself, but after the second or third irate customer who bitched about not being able to repair his 20-year-old race car steering rack for ten bucks like in 1999 my sympathy was exhausted. I doubt Gene Haas would listen to me bitch about essentially the same thing. JMO; YRMV...

Looks like your just stating the exact opposite opinion because your experience is different.

If you use your mindset of " Just call mother Haas" when stuff breaks and try to apply that to a jap machine you're going to spend a fortune.

Thankfully, there are countless resources for aftermarket parts and support. Something Haas lacks entirely.

Quality oems give you the schematics, bearing part numbers, etc. They don't hold you captive like mother Haas does.

I don't know how to explain "drastically more capable". First time I programmed my friends new vf3 I immediately snapped off a 1/2" endmill in aluminum. I thought my numbers were conservative. Then I peaked under the sheet metal and looked at the column. That pretty much solidified my opinion of Haas.

 

[Herding Cats]

I have no doubt that "drastically more capable" (whatever that means) is important for a job shop

I'm going to have to respectfully say it is the exact opposite.

One off, short run and repair work doesn't usually benefit very much by cutting cycle times in half or better. Repetitious production is where the time saved really adds up.

A friend of mine runs a specific part on one of his 2 Haas machines. Around 8 min cycle time. Same program on my VS40 ran a tick over 7 min. No big difference. The huge difference came when I reprogrammed the part to take advantage of larger tooling, more rigidity and about 6 times the HP. Same part, under 2 min.

I will add that my friend does very well making those parts and is pleased with his situation. I just can't help but see that I could do in 3 months what takes him a year.

 

[eaglemike]

I was very happy with Haas until a couple of things happened. I think I've had 5 of them? Started off with a 1998 VF2, that was the best of the lot. Pretty much always ran, and for quite a while the service was good. Added a couple of new mills, and a couple of used lathes. I had issues with the new machines both under warranty and after warranty. I guess I never pushed the lathes hard enough, as they worked ok. Then Haas announced the control on 3 of my machines was no longer supported, making resale a lead balloon to some degree. Also the local service guys started spending a lot more time on the phone, and needing 3-4 trips to fix stuff that would have been fixed the first time before. Then parts prices started to go up, a lot. We all know a machine pretty much always breaks on a Friday afternoon, right? Why is that? I will say the guy on the end of the tech support line was mostly pretty good.
Anyway, after the control "upgrade" requirement came out, it was a joy killer for me. With the quality of service going down, and cost going up, that was it. I switched to another brand. I've never regretted it.
I do agree the Haas website is really great regarding building a machine, spec's and pricing. The "classic" control was certainly way easier to learn and use than any Fanuc I've ever seen. Their "tech tips" videos are great!
ETA: Haas sucks that they won't let the aftermarket support their stuff!!!!

 

[Oldwrench]

I will add that my friend does very well making those parts and is pleased with his situation. I just can't help but see that I could do in 3 months what takes him a year.

I added emphasis to what I think is the important point here. There's always a bigger machine for the job than what one is using. The question is, would that matter to your friend in this case? Maybe his cycle time fits perfectly for running a second machine, in which case some of the work is effectively getting done offline. If he's happy with his results he probably has a reason...

 

[Oldwrench]

ETA: Haas sucks that they won't let the aftermarket support their stuff!!!!

Now that is a good point. OTOH, at some point it will become impractical for Haas to exclude aftermarket replacement parts. If I own a machine whose warranty has expired and I own it free and clear, I am under no obligation whatever to buy service parts from HFO if there's a cheaper alternate source. The first guy who comes up with a retrofit control to put older Haas iron back in service might do pretty well.

 

[Garwood]

Now that is a good point. OTOH, at some point it will become impractical for Haas to exclude aftermarket replacement parts. If I own a machine whose warranty has expired and I own it free and clear, I am under no obligation whatever to buy service parts from HFO if there's a cheaper alternate source. The first guy who comes up with a retrofit control to put older Haas iron back in service might do pretty well.

Have you looked at what used Haas parts sell for on Ebay? I get a kick out of it when people say Fanuc is expensive. Do a comparison, Haas is nuts now that they don't support them.

If you have an old broken Haas the right thing to do is sell the electronics, gearbox, spindle on Ebay for $4000+ and buy a nice Jap machine that's well supported and considerably more productive with that money.

I think a real eye opener might be if you posted up just how much you have spent on your Haas machines and some of us used Jap machine owners posted up what we've spent over the long haul.

I think those hard numbers might paint a picture drastically different than what you see.

You can say you love the Haas control, you love Haas's website and service, but I do not think the ROI and cost/benefit favoring Haas arguments hold any water at all.

 

[Oldwrench]

I don't know how to explain "drastically more capable". First time I programmed my friends new vf3 I immediately snapped off a 1/2" endmill in aluminum. I thought my numbers were conservative. Then I peaked under the sheet metal and looked at the column. That pretty much solidified my opinion of Haas.

I realize this thread is all about bashing Haas. However, snapping off an endmill in the work doesn't indict a machine tool. It says more about its operator.
And incidentally you don't have to peek under the sheet metal to see the column on a VF3.

 

[Garwood]

I realize this thread is all about bashing Haas. However, snapping off an endmill in the work doesn't indict a machine tool. It says more about its operator.
And incidentally you don't have to peek under the sheet metal to see the column on a VF3.

You are 100% correct, operator error. Like I said, I had never used a Haas before. I thought 30hp on a big red sticker meant 30hp, not 5.

I said I peaked under the sheet metal and looked at the column, two separate actions.

 

[TeachMePlease]

According to my ex wife I'm the short, fat, bald asshole.

Crap, I'm dating your ex wife!

 

[TeachMePlease]

Also, this thread and its talk of honest salesmen made me think... Someone oughta reach out to 2of3 and BrotherFrank about this place. They are valuable assets.

 

[Vancbiker]

[QUOTE="Oldwrench, post: 2077, member: 62] .........The first guy who comes up with a retrofit control to put older Haas iron back in service might do pretty well.
[/QUOTE]

I seem recall an outfit tried to sell replacement boards for old Haas and Haas sicced their legal folks on them. A complete “no Haas parts used”retro kit could likely avoid that but I bet more people would rather just keep their old Haas running with the original interface and OS.

 

[Mike1974]

You are 100% correct, operator error. Like I said, I had never used a Haas before. I thought 30hp on a big red sticker meant 30hp, not 5.

I said I peaked under the sheet metal and looked at the column, two separate actions.

1) Not sure what HP has to do with breaking an endmill? The more HP I would think it *could* push the tool more than desirable if a too agressive feed was used.
(edit: less HP)
2) You used one once and you are telling all the Haas owners/operators that they aren't productive enough? That's like me not liking salmon and telling everyone that seafood is gross and you shouldn't eat ANY of it.

3) I know damn well our shop makes great money with our Haas machines, and another 100HP wouldn't mean anything for the work we do, being 90% aluminum, 10% brass, 90% of our parts fit in your hand. We could however use faster spindles because of all the small tooling we use...

4) We've only had minor repairs in the almost 3 years I been here. I would hazard a guess of less than 1-2k

 

[Mud]

I seem recall an outfit tried to sell replacement boards for old Haas and Haas sicced their legal folks on them. A complete “no Haas parts used”retro kit could likely avoid that but I bet more people would rather just keep their old Haas running with the original interface and OS.

Centroid should have one, wonder if they do?

 

[Garwood]

The first time I used a Haas I was surprised it was so drastically different than the Japanese machines I had learned on. That doesn't mean I used one once. I expect it was more a rigidity related deal than a HP one. I wasn't trying to take a 30HP cut, I was just using a lazy non-high speed toolpath strategy and that Haas would have none of it. I have owned a few Haas mills and even two Fadals. I recently contemplated keeping a Haas I bought to flip because it wasn't a very pretty machine so value would not be great. I looked at parts and information to keep the machine alive and I didn't get a warm fuzzy. I fixed it up and sold it. Took some of that money and bought a doubly more capable machine to do the same job.

In 15 years I can think of $3500 I spent on independent tech services and parts for all of my machines. $2000 of that was destroying the same spindle drive twice when my utility raised my line voltage from 235 to 255 volts without me realizing it. There's also a spindle motor in there that wasn't bad, it was the wires from the drive to the motor that were bad. That includes replacing every control board and a memory upgrade for a real early Fanuc machine I had ($600 parts and labor).

I do have machine that needs some spindle work I will probably fix instead of replacing the machine because I really like the machine. That will probably be a tough pill to swallow, but I'm guess around $3500 for the bearings and grease. This is a 50 taper machine. The spindle itself is nearly 3 feet long. Bearings are staggeringly massive.

I have bought and sold a lot of different machines.

Taking an inventory of the Jap CNC iron currently on my floor I have 2 VMC's- 16x22 and 26x60 travels with 4th's, 300mm HMC, 2X 2 axis 8" chuck lathes, 16" chuck live tooled heavyweight lathe, 14x24" auto bandsaw, 50x100 cutting laser. My grand total investment into those machines is $17,800 and $10,000 of that was just the laser which was a dumb investment. Granted, nearly all were purchased with problems that I repaired or complex rigging situations that I handled myself at low cost.

I'm also shopping for a nice late 80's/early 90's 400MM HMC with a budget around $5000-$10,000. Eventually I will find the right machine.

I know I'm far from alone in owning decent iron at significantly less than Haas prices. I know I've invested a lot learning how to fix my own stuff.

My opinion still is as a small shop starting out financing a new Haas is a fine way to go if it pencils out for you.

My opinion is that buying used makes zero sense to buy Haas at market prices. A decent used modern Haas VFss machine starts around $30k while the equivalent performing, but significantly higher quality Jap iron can easily be found around $3000

 

[Mhajicek]

I've got a 2015 VF-3SS here that I've had since new. I run 1/2" Helical endmills in 17-4 H900 and Ti6Al4V-ELI at Helical's recommended parameters, with five hour tool life. When spindle load exceeds about 55% on the meter I know the tool's dull and almost dead. I also run small cutters at 15K RPM for dozens of hours on end, day after day. Can't complain. Did a run of Ti bone plates 24/7 for three months, the machine was bulletproof.

What ever machine you have, you have to know its strengths and weaknesses, and setup and program accordingly. No, it won't plow a 5" indexable through a mold block, but it'll make a blizzard of chips when programmed properly for dynamic.

 

[Vancbiker]

Centroid should have one, wonder if they do?

One could put a Centroid or really almost any retro-fit control even a Mock3. The thing that I think most would not like is losing the familiar Haas OS, screens, U/I, etc. Retaining those is where someone coming up with new boards that plugged into an old Haas control would have a winner. To the best of my knowledge, the only attempt at doing that was shut down by threat of legal action by Haas.

 

[Oldwrench]

I know I've invested a lot learning how to fix my own stuff.

I don't doubt that for a minute. I started out fixing up old but inherently good machine tools, and I stubbornly stuck with that approach for years...but the time eventually came when that simply no longer made financial sense. I cannot say whether your own experience will ever lead you to that point; it may not. But I'm done buying anything without a warranty and anything my people can't get fixed with a phone call.

 

[Oldwrench]

One could put a Centroid or really almost any retro-fit control even a Mock3. The thing that I think most would not like is losing the familiar Haas OS, screens, U/I, etc. Retaining those is where someone coming up with new boards that plugged into an old Haas control would have a winner. To the best of my knowledge, the only attempt at doing that was shut down by threat of legal action by Haas.

Weren't they refurbishing Haas boards, or utilizing some Haas trademarked components or something like that? Anybody remember the details?