Haas vs Hardinge Mills

[DTHOMSON]

We currently have 2 Haas mills (VF-4 and VF-8) and are in the market for anothe mill. We have Hardinge lathes and are looking at a Hardinge XV1000 or VF-3SS. The Haas have been ok but looking to see if the Hardinge would be a better machine. We are somewhat remote in relation to the location of dealers and these are the closest to us. Does anybody have any thoughts or experience here? Thanks.

[chris m]

No experience with Hardinge mills, but their CNC lathes IMO suck. Their service here in New England is also very weak but I have no idea what it is like in your area. I'm not a huge Haas fan, though we have a VF-2 and my buddy has several [VF-2, VF-2SS, VF-3, and VF-3SS], but I would buy a Haas over a Hardinge if it was my money.

[X-L Engineering Corp]

The Hardinge are good Machines we have 14 Lathes but no mills we do have 4 Haas mills I think you would be better of staying with what you already have.

[Oppiz]

quote:

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Their service here in New England is also very weak

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Their phone support isn't the best either

[Tony35]

We have one hardinge lathe rs65 its a good machine. support is ok. we dont have any haas but i have used them in the past and was very happy with them.

my buddy runs a vf3ss and loves it.

if it were me i would go with the haas.

[Kevangel]

haas makes a big deal out of their "up front" standard repair costs and aren't they the people that show a repair guy on a rope bridge making a service call? If I already had 2 Haas I would stick with them. (Same control, etc)

[bogusmill]

When we were buying new machines we looked at Hardinge & HAAS as well as Fadal, Viper, Cincinnatti and bought the HAAS. Can't remember what we didn't like with Hardinge.

[g-codeguy]

No answer for the OP, but have a question for guys like Mr. Moffat who think the Hardinge lathes suck. Why? Personally I don't like the short distance between spindles on the T42 series, but they do make bigger lathes. Rapids aren't that fast. Not much room for live tools or long drills on the 42 series.

 

We have 5 T42s, 1 Conquest 42, 1 Conquest 65 (an excellent lathe), & 3 EMAGs. The Conquest is probably 20 years old and still holds tenths all day long. A sister company took the Conquest 42SP we use to have that is a few months newer than the Conquest 42. Take them over the 4 Daewoo models (8 lathes total) we have anytime. Like them better than the Okuma lathe. Like the new Moris just fine, but would rather run the older Hardinge OT control lathe than the older Mori. Much easier to navigate around the control.

 

Can't say how good their service is. Haven't called for a service rep in a long long time. I have no problem reaching them by phone, and they have always tried to help even when I might have been better off calling a Fanuc rep for my problem.

 

Definitely better than our Yang, or any of the xxxxor controlled machines. I like the Takisawa except that the turret indexes in one direction only. It has been a very good lathe for us. Hitachi isn't bad, but turret indexes in one direction only, and the Hardinge lathes are definitely easier to set the safe index point for. It has also been a good lathe for us.

 

Nakamura is a pretty good machine. Like the one we have. Had purchased another used one, but it had been beaten too badly by the previous owner, so we got rid of that one.

 

Hardinge subspindle is easier to realign than a Daewoo if crashed. I've lined up Hardinge non-live tool turrets, but wouldn't attempt it on any of the other lathes. Leave those for our maintenance man.

 

No experience with the Haas lathes.

 

I must add that the vast majority of our parts are small, and the vast majority of our lathes are barfeeds.

[chris m]

We have a T51SP with the end-working turret and a T42SP with a tailstock, both with Fanuc 18i controls on them and I would trade them both today for [2] more Okuma L370 [we have 6] or LB300 lathes. The "SP" machines hold tenths, but so do all of our Okumas and our 1980 Mori-Seiki SL4, so that is no great feat as far as I am concerned. The T51SP is the most gutless machine I have ever run and the only answer I get from Hardinge is "it is a super precision machine, you aren't supposed to rough with it" which is a crock of sh!t. I rough aggressively on the Okumas and some of our older equipment [Okuma-Howa and Mori-Seiki] and the machines are just as "Super Precise" as the Hardinges, if not even better. The thermal compensation on the Hardinges is ineffective, the machining envelopes are smaller than they should be for the physical size of the machine, the machines are slow [even though they aren't very old], the control is a kluge because the lower turret is like an add-on and not part of the 'standard' control architecture, the turret alignment will change if an insert chips during machining, they "require" left-hand tools which means that they cannot share tooling with any of the other [13] CNC lathes I have, which are all RH. About the only good things that I can say about the Hardinge CNC lathes we have is that their up-time has been pretty good and that they are adequate in the machining accuracy department. For the $300K that the machines cost, I expect better, but they were here when I arrived on the scene so I do what I can to make them productive.

 

C