HAAS TOOL ROOM

I plan to buy a HAAS TOOLROOM. Can anyone tell me if it is the right thing to do? I make tools and moulds for plastics and aluminium.

The H brand toolroom machine suffers from a lack of Z travel, and properly optioned will cost you almost 10k more than the "base" price they advertise. A much better buy would be the Milltronics RW-12, which boasts better travels, better construction (cast instead of welded), and almost all the options already included. But the big H sells the sizzle...HTH

We have been eye-balling this guy with some serious lust.. Any feedback? looks like a better deal to me than the Haas. How about a "shootout" on this stuff? so us grunts know the TRUE story! Done every day on Cars,Motorcycles, washing machines.... you name it. Why not tools. http://www.fadal.com/ie/specials/fadal_trm.asp Regards,

sas

I have been happy with the two prototracks I have. Good service and reliable. In 5 years I have replaced 1 handle, $50.00. They run about 25 hours a week max. (one man part time shop). I have been interested in the Hass and did not know about the Fadal. Looks kind of neet. Either Company has a good local sales and service force. BTW my prototracks are two axis AGE controls fitted on Lagun FTV2 mills with acurite glass scales, not the protrack wheels. I had wheels and while they are good they can screw up. (never had one screw up, just heard about one screw up) A lot of the credit would be given to the Lagun mill because they are made well enough to stand up to the demands of cnc machining. I am not that keen on the Prototrack bed mill because they have a head traming problem,(front to back is fixed) and the miss match that this causes between overlaps makes for some ugly lookin parts or there K model knee mills, they are a bit light. I understand they have a new model that this sittuation with the head has been rectified. I think that the next mill here will be 3 axis and have a tool changer and 40 taper. I know of a few places runing Lagunamatic cnc machines(larger 50 taper machines) and they are much heavier than Hass and Fadal, but while one of there center runs no problem the other has had major spindle bearing problems that Lagun worked on very diligantley to correct. They were happy enough to buy a new one recently. Others type of tool room mills worth looking at are the chevralier brand. Here in southern cal they seem to have good service, not sure about rest of US. This may be the case for Lagun and Prototrack too because they are located within 150 miles of me, as is Hass and Fadal. Good Luck with what ever you decide to buy, but give them all a fair shake and you will be happy that you did the reserch and made a selection backed by your own knowlage and not a sales pitch.

One of our vendors recently bought a Hass toolroom mill and he is very happy with it. However, he does admit that he would be happier with a standard VMC. The toolroom mill needs constant attention, it has no tool changer, and although a tool changer is available it is expensive.

We have a similar mill made in Tiawan that we like very much but if I had to do it over again I would probably choose the Milltronics version.

One real problem that the Hass and Fadal share is lack of Y axis travel. If I remember correctly both machines only have 12" of travel and that is just not enough. The Milltronics that we looked at had 16 as does the mill we bought from Tiawan.

In the end if you really want a tool room mill go ahead and get it but I think most shops would be better off buying a good VMC with a tool changer.

Charles

We have in our shop now 5 haas's 3 of them mini mills and 1 VF1 and Vf6. We are really happy with them, we had 2 ATrump toll room mills with dynapath and they were nothing but junk, my own .02 is do not buy cheap from tiawan. We have a 35x16 lagun that is a total piece of junk, there service was terrible and the spinlde sounds like it is coming apart because of what sounds like gears raking and after they came out and put new ones in they said "its ok they just sound like that" I have ran fadals in the past and it seems like they need ball screws every two years unless they have changed the rigidity of the machine by now. The mini haas's are pretty nice they just lack rigidity because of the welded frames, so your not going to take any big cuts. I would tend to go with a small vmc like the others have said. We just ordered a VFO Haas for i think 58. Haas's service is pretty good when required. Just analyze your options well before you buy because people just like me will always have opinions on whats better or worse. One thing you can do is take a part you normally run and have them set it up, then you can analyze the results from there. Good Luck

Years ago, when working for a certain machine tool company, can't say who, I was asked to come to the factory for a special project. They need a mechanic who could disassemble a strange machine for engineering to look at. They wanted to know why they could sell it so cheaply. I took it apart and reassembled it again. Well, it didn't take long for me to figure out why it sold as cheaply as it did. This company knew nothing, and I mean nothing about machine tool design. Axis motors mounted on thin sheet metal mounts, ballscrews supported by aluminum end plates, ballscrew nuts sopported by cantilevered aluminum plates, all the wrong stuff. They even used aluminum for gibs!!!!!! I will not name the company who manufactured this machine but it still is in business in the USA. Look closely at the history and the resale value of the older machines they built. Won't take ya long. By the way, I refer to that make as True Value Hardware machines, I think thats were they bought most of their components back then.

I use a Milltronics VK3 toolroom cnc mill and the ML17 cnc lathe for R&D work. I have had them for two years with no problems. Before deciding on Milltronics, I checked out Bridgeport, Frye, Hurco and Dyna Mechtronics. Milltronics was best for my application.

the company i work for has 2 hurco's in their tool room #1 m1 1980 model #2 bmc30 1994 model both still run great. the hurco conversational programming makes it easy to program and they are a solid machine.ours get used daily but in a toolroom enviroment. by experienced people.
ps.....haas's look weak to me ...

I am looking at a hurco VM1. Hope this is not the company Mr. Bridgeport was talking about. What is there orgin? Japan or Taiwan or somthing else? Looks like a beefy unit. 26x14x18 @ 6800 lbs. 750 lbs table load and looks like a quality unit. 15 HP 8000 rpm 16 tools 750 ipm rapid xy and 500 in z some options like spindle orientation and rigid tapping but base price is 36k. Sounds like johnfly has had good luck with them, any one else?

I have a 89 Hurco KM3(14,000 hrs)with Ultimax ll control. I bought it used 3 years ago. The original owner said it never had an electrical problem, and that turned me on. well,it still runs and works great and no problems.
The iron was made in Brazil ,and the electrics done in USA.
How sweet it is.

i believe mr b..... was talking about the haas machines. the company i work for has 3 of the h1's mid 90 models and they still work ok and really not too many problems..
but they are not a long term machine. They are allready talking about trading them in.
thats a big company though.My biggest gripe about them is they aren't very rigid. You can take a fairly big cut and then look at the finish "in steel" and see where the cutter was bouncing around in the cut...
we have some old iron OKUMA's mc5h and they are reallllllly loose but will still take a hell of a beating and leave a smooth cut. I really like the hurco's and they are a solid,well thought out machine.
one last word on a haas....." couldnt resist" when i saw the first one for the first time my first question was " why would a machine manufacturer put a button on the control to recover the tool changer cycle??? "
It didnt take long for me to find out why. the dang thing gets hung up all the time.
especially if you take big cuts!!