SL10 Haas dies again

I have the unfortunate pleasure of owning a 2004 SL10. It has about 2500 power on hours and about 1000 cut hours. the 300 volt powersupply has taken a crap. This has been by far the worst machine tool experience I have EVER had. EVER.
In the past year I have spent over $8000 in repairs. That is just in the last year. I am beyond disgusted with Haas.
I have no idea what it's going to cost to get running again. But it's out of here after it's fixed. I'll never own one again.

That's a bummer Jim.

Time for a 220 with live milling?

I'm just about to get in the car and go talk to Mark at SNS sales about that very thing.
I might be a little upside down but not by much. And if I add in the repairs over the next year... I'll be ahead.

Is that a lathe? An buddy of mine used to sell haas. He likes the mills OK, but told me once that he wouldnt sell one of the lathes to anybody he likes. Didnt want to destroy the relationship. That might sound like saleman BS, but I knew this guy when he was still getting dirty for a living, so I put more trust in him than the avg. saleman.

Really sounds like its time to get rid of it. The cost of a new better machine will quickly be covered as it will actually work, and probably a lot faster than a haas too. Bah,.. you know all this...
I remember that you had mentioned before that you wanted to replace that Haas anyway.

Now come on be honest you kick the thing every day on your way into work it's no wonder why it would be acting up.

Wow, what an interesting thread.

I am quickly considering to NOT buy a Haas lathe now.

If I were you PBMW, I would email this thread to your Haas salesman.

Bender

If you search on this board you'll find that in PBMW-s case it would be utterly mute.

Bummer Jim. Haas makes fine vmc's for the money. But I guess their lathes don't quite make the grade.
Keep us informed!

I have a Mini from 2000. It has close to 12000 hours on it. It runs 12/16 hours a day, 7 days a week. Very little trouble.
Mark Haris is at the Portland tool show this week. I'm going to call him next week nad see what I can't get done.
Seymour, is that you that has a new Dura Turn Mori?

Yup, Duraturn 2550.

10" chuck, 30Hp spindle 3" throughbore.

Seymour, just wondering. Is that 30hp rated for 5,15,30mins ? It's so hard to find out how each manufacturer rates their machines sometimes. It's lots of power either way though

Rating is:

34.7/26 HP 30min/Cont
Torque:
261/221 ft-lbf 30min/Cont

Single wound motor, belt driven spindle 3000 Max Rpm.

I have a 2006 Sl-20 and it has had so many problems. My opinion is that if you are planning on doing production work, do not buy a Haas lathe. I agree that the milling machines are good though.

That really blows about the Sl.
I thought maybe you were through with that BS. What machines are on your short list? I noticed that Hardinge just brought out a couple more machines in their SV line. I will be looking them over at Eastec.

Although he definately has more than his share of problems with this lathe, this is not representative of all Haas lathes. For every bad experience with a haas lathe, there are probably 7 - 10 good ones. I have an Sl-10 that has been running 6 days a week for 5 years now. Absolutely no problems with it.

I'm not trying to start the old arguement of "they suck" "no they don't", just that you can't judge all haas lathes by a few bad examples. A chevy is a fine car, but I can cite a lot of bad experiences with chevys. Same goes for any name brand car.

Sorry to hear your woes keep returning on this,pbmw. I was hoping you could work out some bugs, and maybe it would straighten out. You definately got a lemon. Dump it.

I know that every maker has a couple get out the door on them...
That said, I got one of em.
I'm thinking I'll have a look at a Daewoo 240LM Lynx
that's the live tooled version of what I have now. I'm going to look at Mori and Okuma as well.
I have enough work that I could also look at a Horizontal. This just put me into a bit of a bind is all. I have to talk to my guy and see just how much of a bind it is. If ya know what I mean.

Yeah, I don't blame ya. When you get a bad one, you never want to buy another. I'd do the same thing.

I don't know how much this company gets into live tooling lathes, but Sharp has got to be one of the very few brands that I have heard not one complaint of.

You know, I did not want to say too much and running the risk of sounding like a HAAS shill. BUT
I also have a 2001 SL10 with 4126 cut-hours. To date it has cost me $270 for a complete set of waycover felts and $20 for 6 varactors that blew out during a lightning storm.
It does hold +/-.0003 without too much trouble, finish is as good as anything. It has also never seen steel. SST by far the most common, good amount of Inco and some AL. It does drive a 1.25 insert drill into stainless with no issue whatsoever.
BUT!!
Mine is one of the first ones ever built, It has the same 10 station turret as the SL20, same Parker hydraulic unit, MMK chuck. The current models appear to be built cheaper and somewhat cheesier. 12 station 3/4 stick turret, some off-name hydraulic unit, dunno what chuck. I know of only one new SL10, that is now traded in for an Okuma, which had major hydraulic issues, even after a complete replacement.

There are 3 SL20-s I know about and they are also flawless. My other HAAS lathe is the MiniLathe, absolutely 0 trouble with what it does, but it has some design issues which I can't do anything about .
So, my point is that for me HAAS does the job as good as anyone would expect it and I would not for one second hesitate to buy another one. OTOH I would not get a new SL10.
When I looked for my new lathe, I first looked at the SL20 with a boatload of options (bigbore, toolsetter, parts catcher, high pressure coolant etc.) The price came to within an earshot of the 8" Mori Duraturn. I did end up buying the Mori, partly because of outside pressure, partly personal reasons, partly because of reputation and in large part for the mechanical features.
Nonetheless, I am happy with the new machine (less the control but I digress...) it appears to be what I expected. At the same time the SL20 would most likely have served me just as well, as long as the reliability remained the same as my others.

For Jim, he had machine issues as well as dealer issues. For all we or he knows, the two may even be related. In his case moving on to another brand sounds like the prudent thing to do.

Seymour
I have said many times that I don't really have any (at least not VERY many) issues with Haas. They make it possible for a guy to get into this business. They are a great bang for the buck and they do 95% of the stuff needed pretty well.
I have a machine that got out the door on Haas and add in the dealer thing, makes me not a real happy camper.

The machine, by the way, is back up and making partts. As it turned out, the powersupply transformer was set at the wrong tap. By the Haas guy when they set it up. Makes me really happy about that but at least it's not a $3500 power supply.
So, I'm back to making parts. There may well be something to the Lathe vs Mill Haas thing. I know a couple people that have Haas lathes and have had issues with them.
My issue with Haas products, for me, is that I'm getting tired of repairing them every two months. Could be that I got a bad one. I'm starting to think so. But I'm STILL tired of fixing it every two months.
Tamara told me to fix it and sell it. I'm going to call my dealer when they get back from the Portland show next week.