Haas made in USA how much?

Ok,
I'm curious about the Haas 'made in USA' claims.
I've been thinking about their pricing and options, and wondering why they seem to be 'the'
machine to have.

They claim the castings are poured in Calif.

Are these MADE in USA.....
Guide ways & Ball screws?
Servo motors & drives?
Spindle motors & Drives & Encoders?
Control PC boards/Mother board?
Tool Changer components?

There are things about the machines that seem
on the far side of cheap for the prices they charge. Like the Amber display screen, unless that's changed from 3-4 years ago. And the "DOS"
low-res appearence of the display. What would a 12 or 14 inch Amber monochrome CRT sell for wholesale these days?? Maybe $12-14 dollars? Would a color VGA video card and color monitor be a profit killer in the big picture?

I've never seen the graphics, if they have them, but with a mono-chrome screen, they can't be much to see.
All this is 'adequate' but makes for a plain-basic
machine with less than bargan basement pricing.

The options pricing is the killer.
They charge a premimum for turn-ons in the control. And $495 for an optional(??) coolant pump
is the deal breaker in my book.
I'm not sure if probing or digitizing is offered, and at what cost?

They seem to continue to have a following, despite
being what I'm guessing is USA castings outfitted with import hardware, sold for a big markup with the promise of a responsive support network.

I haven't been on their web site or in front of one of their latest models, so maybe improvements
have been made in the last few years?

dan k

I own a Haas Lathe and I'm pretty happy with it. The new screens are a monchrome lcd display, instead of the amber. Still no color. The graphics are just a line showing tool paths and rapids. I don't know much about the insides other than my lathe has yaskawa servo drives on it. I'd guess the linear ways are probably imported also. I believe the control is basicly made by motorola, but motorola has overseas plants so it may not be made here.

Optional coolant pumps are only optional on the mini series stuff. The bigger vmc's come with coolant trays and pumps.

Well, I'm going to Westec in a week and a half - I'll ask 'em.

As far as the display, they now use color LCDs on at least some of their controls. I have not yet had a chance to play with the new controls, so I only have experience with the 1991 VF-0 that I ran briefly several years ago - but I'll let you know what I find out at Westec.

As far as graphics, the '91 VF-0 had a simulation mode where it would display the toolpath as the program ran; it was OK, but not stellar. On the other hand (in my opinion), the control is not really the best place to be checking the operation of the program while developing it - this should be done off-line with a hi-fidelity simulator with a final check on the machine for tolerances before going into production; so for me this is not really a big deal. My philosophy is that the machine control is there to control the machine, and drawing pretty pictures takes resources (RAM, cpu cycles) that could be spent on better machine control.

However, I do think that cheap is endemic across most of the CNC industry - look at available sizes and prices for RAM, storage options, and communications options, and compare that to what's available down at your nearest corner PC store, or online (guess what - it's often the same chips, just soldered to a different circuit board. I have no idea why they persist in this when PC interfaces are standardised, functional, and just as robust, if not more so.)

I rember the price being listed as $2100 for a zip drive kit for one brand of machine - Sheesh!! The smallest control that I have is a PC that drives my MaxNC 10 that I have up in my bedroom (yeah, I sleep next to a mill ) and it's over 10 years old, has 32MB of RAM, ethernet, a 2GB hard disk, and a full-color SVGA display - and it was about $25 down at the local industrial surplus store. I just put together a new one - with new parts, including the servo drives, power supply, spindle VFD, and all - for about $1600 (slightly more if you include the electrical box, misc. nuts and bolts, cabling, etc).

I think it's what the market will stand...

EDIT: The current price for a 20GB hard disk, USB port, and Ethernet port for a Haas is $2995.

Optional coolant pumps are only optional on the mini series stuff.

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Yea.....to make them "look" more entry level affordable I guess.....till you start adding on
-required- accessories.
Why not drop the price another $4000 and make the Monitor & Spindle motor an "option"!!

I rember the price being listed as $2100 for a zip drive kit for one brand of machine - Sheesh!!

I think it's what the market will stand... [Roll Eyes]

EDIT: The current price for a 20GB hard disk, USB port, and Ethernet port for a Haas is $2995. [Roll Eyes]

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See........
At THOSE prices, to me, that shouts "we love you as a customer, too bad your so stupid".

Guess I'm not into the Haas "big happy family of owners" theme.....

dan k

Well, I'm going to Westec in a week and a half - I'll ask 'em.

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Couple 3 years ago I got into an argument with a Haas guy at Eastech. He was saying stoopid things about linear guide ways being "way more ridgid" than box ways, and other BS engineering that would defy the laws of physics if it were true.
I told him I'm not going to buy a Haas machine ANYway, even withOUT the comedy-sales-pitch.

Morons.....

dan k

Why are there no jobbers supplying electical parts for repairing the Haas? Or are there? I would imagine that the standardization of the control itself would mean that there is not a huge variety of parts to stock, or what is the situation?

PS: I paid the $1600 or whatever it was for 16 megs upgrade of memory on mine. Of course, that won't work unless you spend another $700 to upgrade the Mocon at the same time.

I do have to wonder about the 200 stored programs limit. How arbitrary is that?

Murray,
Is it a PC based control or propriatary boards??

dan k

Dan, I've never dug that far into it yet to look what's under the shielding metal, but I am assuming there is something proprietory about it, or we'd all be running hard drives, color monitors and ethernet cards

>> Is it a PC based control or propriatary boards??

On Haas's website they claim it's all proprietary.

>> Is it a PC based control or propriatary boards??

On Haas's website they claim it's all proprietary.

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I would too!

dan k

ok, despite what their sales pitch says, HAAS is a mid to low end machine at best. Depending on what you want to do, they will do the job. I will give credit that some features on HAAS machines are great...... their chip auger, in my professional opinion, is excellent, setting tool offsets is pretty good too (if you own one and have used other CNC machines, you probably know what i mean. Other than that, i hate them. I find the ones at work break down far too often come up with alarms almost like clockwork, and are just cheaply made (thus the cheap price tag). They do have colour screens now. I also the style of programming used for it.

Hey guys. I work for Haas and I wanted to answer Dan's questions;

-Guide ways & Ball screws?
Made in the USA, Japan and Germany by NSK, THK, and Star (Bosch-Rexroth)

-Servo motors & drives?
Servo motors - Yasakwa
Drives - Designed buy us, assembled in house from boards made in the USA.

-Spindle motors & Drives & Encoders?
Spindle Motors - Made in the USA.
Spindle Drives - Designed buy us, assembled in house from boards made in the USA.

-Control PC boards/Mother board?
Designed buy us, assembled in house from boards made in the USA.

-Tool Changer components?
Designed and manufactured by us here in CA.

Monitors - We changed over to color LCD monitors a few years ago and these are standard on all machines.

Graphics - 2D tool path display with a Z-depth bar display on the mills. Lathes 2D tool path. True 3D solid model graphics? No.

Probing - We have a complete Renishaw probing system for our VMCs for $5K, installed. This also includes our own programming system on the control for utilizing the probe. You can digitize a part, but that takes some programming, we don't have a digitizing specific package.

We machine all components that go into our machines at our factory in southern California. Well almost all, we do farm out a very small amount of work to fill in unexpected gaps. All of the sheet metal for the machines are made here in CA by local vendors to our specs. All of the sub-assemblies, major assemblies, controls and complete machines are assembled in our factory as well.

We honestly do work hard to make our machine tools better everyday. We are by no means perfect, but we work with great passion trying to make the best value machine tool we can. We are very open and honest with customers and work to give you the best service out there.

I know this is turning into a sales pitch, but I wanted to answer Dan’s questions honestly. If you have any more questions along this line I don’t mind responding to them.

Thanks,

Scott

What is the procedure to perform cleaning maintenance inside the carousel toolchanger? I'd like to snoop around inside there and clean out any accumulating residues, but hate to hit EStop in the middle of a toolchange just to catch the door open on the carousel.

ScottG - Are you going to Westec?

Also, what gives with the prices for some of this stuff - RAM, Ethernet, HDD, etc? These are all parts that can be gotten very inexpensivly in standardised, easy-to-use packages; and if you are worried about reliability, just spec server-qualified parts. Note that I'm not suggesting that you abandon the proprietary control model completely, as it is a part of what can be thought of as an expensive, large, heavy appliance, not a desktop PC (I, personally, feel that Windows has no place in a machine control) - it's just that when certain parts are universally available, with good quality, in quantity, at low prices, why re-invent the wheel? And it's not just Haas either - I've seen similar prices for these "options" for other controls, too.

And another (related) thing - why only 16MB of RAM? Is that the maximum that your processor can access? (for some reason, I seem to remember that it's a couple of Motorola DragonBalls???)

I know this is turning into a sales pitch, but I wanted to answer Dan’s questions honestly. If you have any more questions along this line I don’t mind responding to them.

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Yes, I have a couple questions.

Why are the machines so damn overpriced?
Why $100/meg for memory?
Why $2500-3000 for a $120 hard drive???

They charge these prices for accesssories and then
use $8 electric stove elements for braking resistors on the spindle drives........
Go figure???

All the advertizing and racing publicity in the world doesn't impress me as much as lower "real world" prices would. Maybe it might be better marketing to cut some of the Racing sponsorship and lower prices to realistic and -true- entry level numbers.

Oh, and maybe the MADE IN USA and the american flag logos should be smaller or disappear....?
Maybe "Assembled in USA" would be more truthful.

Forward this to Gene if you want.

dan k

I'm looking around and kicking tires on a couple VMC's.
One that stands out is Atrump: http://www.atrump.com/.

I don't work for these people......
The iron is made in Tiawan.
No excuses, no flim-flam story that it's USA made.
I think the features of the Centroid control are
great, and accessories and software are reasonably priced. Anyone that knows Centroid controls knows they are -repairable- and use off-the-shelf- PC parts. This is a PC based control and a BOX way machine. A friend has had one for a couple-3 years and really likes it.


dan k

Look...this is turning into a a Haas bashing thread.
I applaud Scott on answering questions.
There are not that many American made, or EVEN assembled in America machines out there.
I can count on one hand the brands that I know of.
As to Haas, I own one. It gets the job done! Period. Will it last as long as a Mori? NO!
But who cares. I am not trying to keep my machines running for 20 years. That philosophy is old school. Today, you might want to stay competitive and purchase new machines every 10 yrs. or even sooner. So I don't need a 30 year old dinasaur to make chips for me.
The machines that are produced by Haas are made with a low cost in mind. THey do not hide that from anybody with half a brain.
If you are buying a machine that is 60K verses one that is 200K you do the math. What machine will have better components?
As to the question of options??? where do you think they make their money?
That is the way it is.... Yes, we all know that the ZIP drive is $120 at any computer store, but if you want to go buy one and put it on a machine you will need to have a machine that will let you do that. IE.. not a Haas. You will spend more money up front for that machine. Period. 6 of one, of half dozen of another.
You choose.

But lets just not bash one of the few American companies just b/c you don't like them.

AND don't harrass the Haas employee. It might be nice to have him around when somebody has a question.
Doug.
Doug.

HuFlungDung,

Actually, unloading the carousel and then pressing E-Stop isn't a bad way to gain good access to the carousel plate for maintenance. You can also go to the side of the machine, raise your side window and then push back the individual tool change stations to reach up and do some maintenance to the tool station. However, the easiest way is to do what you said. Just remove all of the tools first and then use the tool changer recovery to get the machine back into operation.

HammerHead/Dan,

Yes, I'll be at WESTEC. Stop by the booth and ask for me if you guys would like to chat. As for the memory storage issues, yes, compared to PC components you can purchase our memory prices are high. With that said, it is quite expensive for us to create our USB/HD/ENET option. It includes not only the HD, but also a Pentium III processor on a custom PCB just to handle networking communication along with the CAT5 connection and then the seamless interface into our control. We are not PC based and never will be. We agree with HammerHead completely, Windows has no place on a machine tool; it adds a major layer of complexity and potential failure modes.

As for system memory, 16MB is the maximum at the moment. We designed our control from the ground up back in the early 90’s and at that time it was an unbelievable expense to purchase RAM. It isn’t because of the limits of our processor why it is set at 16MB, but we found that people seeking memory over this level will need and want a faster method of getting these large files into the control. Hence the USB and CAT5 connection included with the hard drive.

Dan,

Yup, we do use oven heating elements for dissipating the heat generated from slow the spindle and axis motors. Why do we use these? Two reasons; cheap and they are incredibly effective at taking electrical current and dissipating it. This is what an oven heating element is designed to do. We use to use ceramic coils for this purpose, but they would heat cycle over time and short out. These oven eyes are designed for exactly this purpose and are far, far less expensive.

Are machines are made in America. We machine all the castings and mechanical components in our machines. We have a machine shop with almost 300 machines in production, 2/3 of which are our own machine tools. The other 1/3 are large 5-side machines and FMS systems with pallets over 630mm. We stand by the claim American made because we truly are and we are quite proud of that.

If you guys have some time during WESTEC, please make a trip to the factory in Oxnard. You can stop by our factory anytime and ask for a tour. We give tours to anyone who asks anytime. We are quite proud of the factory we have built here in southern CA.

We don’t think our machines are over priced. A discuss here wouldn’t be as productive as a discussion in person. If you guys do come to WESTEC, please stop by the booth and ask for me. My name is Scott Gasich. Ask anyone at the main desk for me and they’ll hunt me down.

Hope to see all of you at WESTEC,

Scott

AND don't harrass the Haas employee. It might be nice to have him around when somebody has a question.

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Nobodys "bashing" the Haas employee.
None of my comments are directed at HIM personally. That's why I said "forward it to Gene".
Anybody with "half a brain" can see that....

The machines that are produced by Haas are made with a low cost in mind. THey do not hide that from anybody with half a brain.

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Well, this is contradictory to the point that it makes little sense.....see quote below....

As to the question of options??? where do you think they make their money?

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Bait & switch.
Push the USA label & use import parts.
Overprice options that should be standard.

I guess American companines should be able to do that and their customers should just sign the check. No "bashing" allowed....

No problem, If I owned a Haas I suppose I'd defend them too.

dan k

Scott,
Thanks for the info and your up front comments.
Hope you don't feel "bashed" personally.

dan k