looking at buying a VF6

hey everyone,

There's a VF6/40 coming up for auction near me soon and i'm thinking about throwing a bid at it.

Is there anything in particular i should be looking out for on it? It only has 6000 hours apparently.

Cheers,
Trav

We recently purchased an older VF6 (mid 90's vintage) and have been happy with ours. It was a lightly used machine, so even though it's old, it is in decent shape. It's a sizeable beast, so it eats up quite a bit of space in the shop, but I think we could fit a Volkswagen bug on the table if we needed to. I will say that if we leave shop air on to the machine overnight, then we have troubles getting it the run the warmup cycle in the morning (it all has something to do with shifting the spindle from low/hi on startup), but this is simply a nuisance, not something that we consider a problem.

Other than minor leaks here and there (nothing significant especially for its age), we have been very happy so far. It seems to be accurate, and reasonably quiet.

xa-mont said:

hey everyone,

There's a VF6/40 coming up for auction near me soon and i'm thinking about throwing a bid at it.

Is there anything in particular i should be looking out for on it? It only has 6000 hours apparently.

Cheers,
Trav

Click to expand...

All depends on if the machine has power to it for inspection. If no power, then all you can do is look for visual cues as to the condition and care it has received.

If it has power, then run the spindle up and down the rpm range listening for any sounds of bearing issues. Do a tool change, rapid all axis the full length of travel; do all this while listening for any unusual sounds that may indicate issues. Even take a look at the alarm history to see if anything significant jumps out at you or if you notice a reoccurring alarm that may indicate an ignored issue(s).

Good luck!

In addition to what Haastec said, I like to put a call into the HFO and ask for maintenance records, if Haas did not service you can ask for service records from techs they did use ( the latter may or may not be an accurate, inclusive history).
I'd expect to see some calls for limits switches, maybe X-axis cable, power supply (if older machine)maybe some other items that just go...but I'd be weary if Ball Screw/Ball Nut had to be replaced-due to crash, Head alignment-due to crash, Panel replacements-due to crash...
Even if an isolated case, its not the worst thing...but some machines you get a list of hard knocks, bumps and bruises telling you that machine has had a ROUGH life.

pdexter1210 said:

I will say that if we leave shop air on to the machine overnight, then we have troubles getting it the run the warmup cycle in the morning (it all has something to do with shifting the spindle from low/hi on startup), but this is simply a nuisance, not something that we consider a problem.

Click to expand...

If this becomes persistent, there is an air reduction orifice going to gearbox that can be enlarged a few thousandths and can clear up that problem.
I forget exactly where, but the most time consuming part of job is removing and replacing headstock cover.