Haas Vm3

[Bob W.]

If a person had a given amount of money to spend on machinery for production work, say $250k. Would they push more volume spending that money on 4 Haas machines or 1 Japanese machine?

 

Also, for the anti-Haas folks... What other brand would you recommend for a person on a Haas budget? I always hear a lot of Haas bashing on this board and the solution always seems to be to buy a machine that is 3-4X the price. Is there anything better in the Haas price range?

 

I am aware that my Haas is not a Matsura quality machine but it is a pretty good value and it has worked well for me.

[Guest]

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If a person had a given amount of money to spend on machinery for production work, say $250k. Would they push more volume spending that money on 4 Haas machines or 1 Japanese machine?

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Give me 1 good "Japanese" machine, fixture and tooled properly and I believe I could beat 4 HAAS in quantity AND quality

 

I can machine faster, MUCH faster and more reliably, faster IPM, faster RPMs, reliable, I'd venture to say 2 of those HAAS would be down for a percentage of the time.

 

Course if I am going to try to cut .50 cent widgets, I wouldn't bother.

 

HAAS have their place, IT IS NOT however at the top of the food chain. By their own admission that is NOT a market they go after, there's a reason why.

[MIL-TFP-41]

One thing about the Haas that no-one can deny is the ease of use of their control....got a question? The manual is right on the control. Little things like sequential engraving cycles built in are nice touches. The Japanese are just now starting to catch on. Haas just needs to catch on to the Japanese on how to build quality hardware.

[Thee Dragracer1951]

Bob

Have a look at both Sharp and Daewoo

Great bang for the buck

Much better reliability and service at least in my area.

[TR Mfg.]

quote:

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Also, for the anti-Haas folks... What other brand would you recommend for a person on a Haas budget? I always hear a lot of Haas bashing on this board and the solution always seems to be to buy a machine that is 3-4X the price. Is there anything better in the Haas price range?

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We got a Johnford SV32P 15 months ago and have been happy with it. It was about the same price as the same size Haas with same options, maybe a tad less. Box ways, side mount toolchanger, and Fanuc control won us over. It's not a Mori, but we didn't have Mori money to spend.

I think John might be right one great machine can beat two ok machines but if you don't have the budget you have to work with the best you can get at the time.

[FAS]

That is correct, it isn't a market they (we) go after.

Simple reason: It's too small.

[Guest]

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Simple reason: It's too small.

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That's funny, having run more than a few, I always thought they just weren't good enough

[mgsanchez]

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I'd venture to say 2 of those HAAS would be down for a percentage of the time.

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That's strictly hearsay your Honor.

 

The last shop that I was in had five Haas machines cutting 304 stainless sixteen hours a day, five days a week. In the six and half years that I was there the oldest of the Haas'(a 1997 VF-3) needed a gearbox in 2007. That machine was down for four days total. Not bad, four days in ten years (99.9% uptime)! The rest of them just kept making parts day in, day out!

 

In 2003, they bought a Mazak Variaxis 500. What a P.O.S.! The Mazak was fast (1900 IPM rapids), but could not hold 0.002" true positions. In other words, this machine would make a lot of scrap for us really fast. Mazak's sent techs out a dozen different times and they could not improve the accuracy of this machine. Mazak verified the problems with ball bar and laser tests and documented everything. Mazak even sent out a guy from Japan saying that if he could not fix it, no one can. Well guess what, he did not fix it!

 

Just for grins, we posted a three axis program for the Mazak and the Haas. We ran the parts and the Mazak part failed inspection and the Haas part pass with flying colors! The Mazak's cycle time was faster, too bad the part was scrap. I guess you can say that our Mazak made scrap faster than our Haas!

 

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[YoDoug®]

I heard about this one dudes-cousins-sisters-boyfreind that worked in a shop that had a Haas machine go crazy. It killed everyone in the shop one by one and then escaped to never be seen. They say on a cold foggy night you can still hear echoes of the spindle chatter-laughing in the wind. I know I wouldn't trust one after knowing that.

[TR Mfg.]

It has to be said Haas has to be doing something right. 1,300 machines a month is nothing to laugh at.

[mgsanchez]

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Sales of Haas CNC machine tools hit an all-time high of

13,663 units in 2007 – an increase of nearly 20 percent over 2006

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I hear a lot more complaints about Haas now than I heard five years ago, so I'm not sure I'm buying that.

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If that were true, Haas' sales should have decreased by 20 percent, not increased.

 

 

Buy American, the job you save may be you own!

 

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[chris m]

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If that were true, Haas' sales should have decreased by 20 percent, not increased

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Not necessarily. The Big 3 automakers in this country saw sales increase many years when their quality wasn't very good because the demand was high and the prices were right. Most shops have limited money to spend and I think that Haas' products are still superior to Vipers or Fadals or Hurcos or whatever else is out there in the price range. Haas has also broadened their product line [to their detriment in my opinion] to include HMCs, more lathes, etc, which helps volume quite a bit. Add to that fact that the industry was strong in 2007 and I'm not surprised that the sales were up.

 

I'm not a Haas basher at all, but there are issues with their machines that should not be ignored if you have the budget to ignore them. If you need a machine and only have the dollars for a Haas, then you should look hard at the stated accuracy and repeatability of the machines, the option list, the parts you need to produce, and decide which machine will do the job. I'd rather have a discussion about which size machine to buy and which options to purchase than a 'tastes great - less filling' war like this thread has become.

 

C

[MACHINEMASTERG]

how many haas bashers drive mercedes benz or bmw to work or are most of you driving chevy or fords ???the haas are your chevys thats all great machines for the money $$$ just like mastercam isnt the mori of the cam world either .

[Guest]

OK, I give, great machine for the $$$

[Kevangel]

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Is there anything better in the Haas price range?

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Dayton is one of the largest machining tooling centers in the country and there are tons of haas and Milltronics (Minnesota-USA) machines here. I would also look at them as they keep getting better and better, they have a ridgid roller way system as an option that I am curious about.(40 millionths encoders ,standard , 2 year warrenty-standard I think)

[67 Yankee]

I've never been excited about Haas, but I do think they represent a good value. We now have 6 of them in our shop and they make us money. Maybe if we were doing super scientific work they wouldn't be our choice, but we're making aircraft parts mostly from aluminum and the Haas machines are having no trouble with that. We have had problems here and there but service has been pretty good and pretty affordable as well.

 

Or you could buy that super duper deluxe DMG 5 axit with the tilting head, have constant problems and be facing a spindle replacement like we are here. For a bit ove $600 the DMG guy will come out and look at the machine and see if the spindle is indeed "going out" of if there is another problem, and if we do need a replacement it's $47,992.50!!

[TR Mfg.]

Thing I see is that Haas starts out with a low price and "options" add up quick. A VF2-YT list at $54K but add the options we needed ad it gets to $78K. For that $$ you start to have other options.

[Thee Dragracer1951]

I own two of them

Service is why I won't buy another.

My SL10 is the bigest offender. That an dthe fact that it is not accurate. It'll drift .001 in ten parts.

My Mini is reliable and accurate though.

HEre's what I think...

My mini is a 2000 and my SL is a 2004. They are making enough machines that they are having quality issues. Mine had issues from day one. Never could get it resolved.

[MotorCityMinion]

2 VF3's, 1 VF4, and a mini mill here. I hate the mini mill, the others are great. Buy the Haas and with the saved cash, another puter and seat of MC.

[Bill Sutton@Accurate Machine]

We have a total of 12 Haas here ranging from Tool-Room to VF7. They are good for what they are. We beat them up everyday and still going.

We have our own maintance guy which keeps them in tip top shape.

 

Several of them have pallet changers. Bad Design.

Umbrella Tool Changer really bad design. We had a 20 tool changer fall right down last night. Smashed all the tools and way covers. 6 Tools in the changer.

 

Overall very happy with the Haas for the value.

They are good for the work we do.

[Josh T™]

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We have Haas VF 8s with trunions (2) Vf 3s with trunion (3) VF 2s (4) Toolroom mills (3) Lathes SL30s with C axis (3) SL20 C axis Toolroom lathe and Haas EC2000 Horizontal with trunion and rotary. We do aircraft work Alum. power generation parts stainless to Haspaloy inconel and so on no real problems we purchase gear driven when possable. With that said you have to keep your feeds within reason. We have excellent service mostly instalation. The Haas dealer is right down the street from us.

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I used to work with Don. Our company got sold on the size to cost ratio for larger machines. They could have invested more $ and got nice Jap-made machines but the GM is not a machinist so I'll leave it at that. I used to Run/Program the VF8s with the TRT310. These machines had CAT-50 spindles at 10,000 RPM. The biggest endmill you could run on them was a 1.500 hogmill at a 1.500 DOC in steel. We tried 2.000 hogs and broke 3 belts!

 

I'd invest the money in something great, not something good.

 

Oh yeah, the local Haas Sales Office does have a nice showroom on our shop floor!

[mgsanchez]

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I'm not a Haas basher at all,

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Sorry Chris, I did not mean to insinuate that your were.

 

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Not necessarily. The Big 3 automakers in this country saw sales increase many years when their quality wasn't very good because the demand was high and the prices were right.

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Even Toyota has had quality and recall issues lately. Since time is the only real truth, only time will tell.

 

quote:

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Haas has also broadened their product line [to their detriment in my opinion] to include HMCs, more lathes, etc, which helps volume quite a bit.

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I don't agree with that philosophy either. It looks like they are using a page from the car manufactures playbook.

 

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[Guest]

would be very interested in any info-links that you could send my way regarding Toyoda machine

quality and recall issues.

 

hi-jack off

 

Doug

[chris m]

Doug, he's talking about Toyota automobiles, not Toyoda machine tools

[Chris Rizzo]

haas machines are great to start a business , but when the business grows and you need serious parts/quatites/accuracy/reliabilty, you'll reach a haas'limit quick.

 

speaking from experience. we are replacing haas' with real machines, and seeing production go up at least 75%. reliability, repeatability, accuracy all are beaten by "jap" machines here. period.