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Do you maintain your own Haas? Do you have to go through the dealer?

swarf_rat

Titanium
Joined
Feb 24, 2004
Location
Napa, CA
I am considering a Haas, it is about the only thing out there in a small footprint VMC with any presence on the used market. But I have always maintained my own equipment, debugged and repaired it myself when needed, then bought parts from the manufacturer if available.

To maintain it you need electrical prints. Does Haas supply these to users? If I buy parts do I have to buy them from the dealer, or can I buy them from Haas?

The local Haas reps are an hour and a half away and I have already had a distasteful experience with them. Was looking at a used machine, called Haas service which magically bounced me to them, gave them the serial number to find out what options were installed. They wouldn't tell me, "privileged information" then said. How much would it cost to have those options turned on? Couldn't tell me without knowing what options were installed.....which they couldn't tell me....So I called Haas main number in Oxnard, they gave me the info no problem. If I have to deal with that kind of crap from the rep, not going to buy the brand....
 
As far as DIY repairs, I find Haas to be a pretty easy machine to work on. At least designed by Americans so i understand it more. However, some of the older iron we have is damn primitive and down right piss poor designed so feel free to apply proper fixes as needed.

For instance, machine works with metal chips and oils but we have electric plugs all over the machine WITHOUT any type of weather tight protection so they are free to gather chips and short out, corrode, etc. Go look at a Mori, then a Haas, BIG difference.

That being said, I cannot say we have had to throw many hard parts at them, just simple but GD annoying repairs. The techs in CA can be downright helpful. They will usually provide what you need when requested.
 
Do you have electrical prints for your machine? Are you able to buy parts from Haas (or the dealer of your choice, as opposed to the one responsible for your territory)?
 
All Parts are available thru the HFO dealer network. For myself I pay the dealer and then go to the factory to pick them up. You cannot buy directly from the factory.

If you contact the factory's tech support they can help trouble shoot and point you in the right direction with the proper part number if required. Call your HFO order it and have it shipped to your door.

I do all my own fixin so I have never had to deal with my local HFO guys, but I have met him by accident. I was picking up parts at the factory one day, had a question, saw a service van waiting as well and went and knocked on the window. Turns out he works my area, nice as hell and gave me his cell #.

There's always bad apples in the barrel, sounds like you got the dantada" guy, if I were to bet you went to the HFO owner and explained your bad experience he would be all over that guy for playing games. You have to figure it's there bread and butter to satisfy you. So as an owner my smart ass employee just cost me potential revenue in parts, possibly service (if you get in over you head), and maybe a machine purchase down the road. I'd bounce him period.

Good Luck,
 
I Have mixed experience with my HFO. I have the unique position of working for a DOD contractor and part time for my self, three diffrent Haas mills at my day job and I own one. My machine is a '92 VF-0 and oh yea did it need a lot of work but few parts. The HFO was very helpful in making sure we got the correct parts and gave us some tips on some issues with the tool carousel.

At my day job we have needed service a few times, and I'll be kind and say that I am less than impressed, I would not tolerate so many broken promises and extremely poor communication. The latest was tech sent to the wrong place, two days later he has the wrong part delivered. Two weeks to get a shuttle motor and another week of "he'll be there tomorrow. After two proximity switches and new motor it was discovered a bad plug on the wire buried in a rats nest of far too long cables, looked to me the thing had been stretched too tight, but I'm just a dumb machinist - what do I know?

For the machines themselves they are not so bad to work on, the service book is fair, many of the common issues are described in a trouble shooting guide. There is a wire list and IO positions are labeled on the boards and wires as well, of course if they used a $0.30 connector instead of the $0.03 ones I have had a few less repairs to do, but is is a nineteen year old machine and working well after a through cleaning and fixing all the issues from a complete lack of PM, she mills a true enough circle to call it a good machine.


Hopefully some of your local Haas owners will speak up and have a better report.
 
I think one of my biggest bitches with Haas services are as above. Haas has become like so make OEMs where all the techs are reduced to parts changers, NOT techs. Many have no real experience and have no business charging the ridiculous rates to LEARN in the field on others dime and equipment.

I have told this story many times but I was at a good friends shop helping out when a Haas tech was there to setup a new VF2. Tech was friggin baffled that the machine ran great but the ""DC"" buss showed nearly no voltage when his meter was on ""AC"". He actually argued with me that the buss was AC. I them had to explain to HIM how Haas pulls power off the DC rectified buss from the spindle amp to power the axis amp cards.

I realize there are probably some good techs out there but when you reduce a tech to replacing a whole list of parts instead of checking basic things, it does not sit well with customers in many cases and does not allow a tech to be a tech. If you note my earlier post, Haas SUCKS with connectors. They are not weather tight, not handle vibration, corrode, etc.

Another story is that we had a chip auger motor suddenly start blowing fuses under no load. Haas says "buy an auger motor". NOT, check continuity on the motor leads, test all to ground, turn on with no motor connected, etc. In that case, on of the phases, again from a connector, lost contact and overloaded the rest of the phases. reterminating the motor fixed it. 0 dollars and 30min rather than 500 bucks and days of down time.
 
I have a fear of technicians - any brand technicians. There are probably good ones around, but for the most part they do not debug a problem. So they are swapping expensive parts while you are paying high rate, after they drove 2 hours on the clock to get there. Not to mention than most of my problems happen late on Friday night going into a 3 day holiday with parts needed Monday morning.

That is why I ask the question: do I have to deal with the locals (I guess they are called HFO in Haas-land)? I'm pretty good at debugging things - I mean actually finding the cause - and I charge myself a very low rate to do it. I would't mind ordering parts though them if they could at least get the order straight. Though I have to ask what value are they adding here? I find the part I need, I call in the order, it drop ships from the factory and the HFO picks up 30%? But anyway, the thing I cannot tolerate is having to go through them for information. It just adds noise and delay to the communication channel to those that might actually know the answer.

When you say "wiring lists" - so there isn't really a schematic supplied with the machine, but there is a connection list allowing you to trace circuits to faults?
 
"When you say "wiring lists" - so there isn't really a schematic supplied with the machine, but there is a connection list allowing you to trace circuits to faults?"

Yes, there is a list of terminations and what they are for. Wires are labeled with a # and function on both ends and on the circuit board. Much easier than working on a car! I am no electrician, know just enough to keep from getting electrocuted or blowing up something up and I have been able to quickly trace the many issues I had - I invested in a kit of automotive type connectors, have replaced all that are outside of the cabinet exposed to oil/coolant or in motion.

Factory parts I have ordered were reasonably priced for what they were.
 
I haven't had a bad experience with any Haas technicians. I do know the guys here at the local HFO in Carson, Ca and every time I need service I know which guys I want working on my machine.

If you have bad service with a Haas tech or rep. do now hessitate to call HFO in Oxnard and tell them your problem!

Explain your machine problem clearly over the phone, most of the times they are able to detect any problem so they can fix it the first time a tech comes over.

Ask as many questions as you can when a tech. comes over, most of these guys are very helpful and are willing to share their knoledge with you.
 
I've done some installs for some options, some minor repairs like replacing fingers in the tool changer, adjusting the tool change position, spindle orientation etc.

HFO will walk you through things over the phone pretty well.

When I needed a tech to come out it's always been within a few days and always fixed on one visit.

Can't say enough good things about the local HFO here in Phoenix, best support I've had for any machine.
 








 
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