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Haas ST-20 Lathe

Mr.E

Aluminum
Joined
Mar 11, 2017
Location
Southern
Hi guys

Were adding a new Haas ST-20 lathe and I hope its good machine.
Running stainless mostly 2.0" and under with a little 3.0" & 4.0" diameter.
Looking to here what people know and any tips or limitations I should watch for.

Thanks:scratchchin:
 
I don't have any experience with an ST machine. But please keep me/us posted, very curious. This shop has two quite old SL's, SL20 and SL30 from around 2000-2002, and a 2014 TL2. The SL20 beats the other by quite a bit for holding tolerances. SL30 will hold +/- .001 over the day for the most part once it's going, on aluminum jobs at least. TL2 just has too much variance in toolholding (indexing QCTP... stupid) to hold that reliably. It'll do it when you don't need it! Not when you do. LOL

Good luck and enjoy your new Haas lathe.
 
Running an SL-20 and ST-10's and SL-10's and several VMC's.

All good machines that will make good parts. Do not expect to do heavy roughing and drilling with it, torque is lacking on spindle and on axis's...which is okay as machine could not handle much more torque anyway. So cut down on the roughing, add a finishing pass and you'll make great parts, that's the Haas trade off.
 
I don't have any experience with an ST machine. But please keep me/us posted, very curious. This shop has two quite old SL's, SL20 and SL30 from around 2000-2002, and a 2014 TL2. The SL20 beats the other by quite a bit for holding tolerances. SL30 will hold +/- .001 over the day for the most part once it's going, on aluminum jobs at least.

TL2 just has too much variance in toolholding (indexing QCTP... stupid) to hold that reliably. It'll do it when you don't need it! Not when you do. LOL


I cannot speak about the TL, other then Haas is a good bang for the buck when running simple, straight forward stuff. Machines are priced right and while there is some variance, it can usually be worked around.
But In MY Opinion, once you start adding extra Haas Gadgets the price jumps AND the variance is compounded. An example, Turning Centers are not overly rigid to begin with...add a live tool extended out from the turret which in the best of situations reduced rigidity, but on a Haas...


Oh...reason I wanted to respond in the 1st place.
My SL-20 right out of the box used to hold size right on the money and pretty much stayed there all day every day from day one. Pretty much as in tight tolerances you'd tweak a few 10ths over the course of the day.

My 2nd center was a SL-10. I found myself chasing the sizes most of the morning, even with a warm up program. If we stopped it for a period of time, lunch, getting back we'd be chasing tolerance again. We got used to it, figured on bar runs every 48" bar was about 20 minutes and we'd be at the limit, so tweaked a few 10th...after 2-3 hours and about .006-.008 comp it settled in and if left all day it was pretty much ok, maybe up or down a couple 10ths...in holding +/-.0005.
I mentioned to one tech I was disappointed have to chase my numbers and right away told me to call HFO and they forwarded me to factory. Turns out the parameters used to set Thermal comp where wrong for my area, asked me some questions, took the data of the range over time and had me adjust parameter...right away i went from a .006 range to .001-.002 I tweaked again and now it runs like the Sl-20...over the course of the day only a few 10ths here and there. Had same issue with the next SL-10 I bought. The ST-10, came in on the nose...wanders less then all of them.
 
I have experience with the big brother (ST-30) and little brother (ST-10) to your machine in a job shop/small production run environment.

They're great value, and the service and parts are tough to beat, but I agree with SIM: they are not heavy roughing machines, especially in stainless. Don't expect it to be as rigid as a machine that might cost 2-5 times as much, and you'll have good outcomes.

Keep us posted!
 








 
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