info on older haas vmc

[DBcooper]

i found a '95 model vmc for a very reasonable price, however the seller knows nothing about it. it belonged to his rentors, they left it when they moved out. he sent me a pic of the serial tag, all it says under model is '3'

im not familiar with older haas machines, or what vmc models they had available in '95, but my assumption is it would be a VF? it has an umbrella tool changer and it looks like its been used quite a bit over the past 27 years lol. what is a fair price for this unit, assuming it is a functional machine with only minor issues? i dont even know the travels, spindle horsepower or anything about it. ive worked in shops that ran several late model ('06-current) haas machines and i have definitely liked how user friendly their control is, but i dont want to buy a 5k machine and have to put another 5-10k in it to have a functional almost 30 year old machine.

note: i have not inspected it in person

 

[Duc]

i found a '95 model vmc for a very reasonable price, however the seller knows nothing about it. it belonged to his rentors, they left it when they moved out. he sent me a pic of the serial tag, all it says under model is '3'

im not familiar with older haas machines, or what vmc models they had available in '95, but my assumption is it would be a VF? it has an umbrella tool changer and it looks like its been used quite a bit over the past 27 years lol. what is a fair price for this unit, assuming it is a functional machine with only minor issues? i dont even know the travels, spindle horsepower or anything about it. ive worked in shops that ran several late model ('06-current) haas machines and i have definitely liked how user friendly their control is, but i dont want to buy a 5k machine and have to put another 5-10k in it to have a functional almost 30 year old machine.

note: i have not inspected it in person

Free. Completely unknown condition probably means they left for a reason. Otherwise he will need to pay a rigger to remove the mill. Plus sounds like scrap prices have bottomed out.

 

[DBcooper]

Free. Completely unknown condition probably means they left for a reason. Otherwise he will need to pay a rigger to remove the mill. Plus sounds like scrap prices have bottomed out.

kinda what i was thinking. i was pretty gun shy about it

 

[mhajicek]

I wouldn't take it for free. It's probably completely clapped out, with a fried board that you can't get a replacement for, and they weren't even that good back then when new.

 

[M K]

As mentioned if it was left then it was probably left for a reason, BUT that doesn’t mean it can’t be saved and even if you did spend £5k on it to get a good working machine that would still be a bargain, depends if you are able to do all the fault finding yourself without having to pay a third party to do it for you

I’m currently doing all this with an old vfoe I just got for spares but I’m working through the long list of issue it has to see if it’s worth saving

Check out my recent YouTube videos on it to see the sort of issue I have come across to give an idea of what you might be facing

Also find out if it is a brushless machine with a vector drive or an earlier vfd machine

Thanks
Marc

 

[magno_grail]

I think a '95 would be a brush machine, easy to check, look at the servo drives. If they are cards with two wires to the chassis connectors it is brush. If in metal cases with three leads to the connectors, they are brushless. Power it up and look at the LEDs on the main board. If you cannot power it up there is another problem, the head has to be bolted down to the table to keep the table from sliding around when moving. You could crank it down by hand or jumper the motor leads to a power supply.

 

[triumph406]

If it had been worth anything the renters would have either taken it with them, or sold it on. Assuming there's still power you could get it to run, but do you know how to check ways/ball screws etc etc?

 

[1032screw]

I'll play devils advocate but the first thing I'll ask is what do you want it for? Side hustle machining of aluminum out of your home shop or adding it to a stable of machines that run 24 /7 in steel?

I am in the home shop side hustle camp FWIW

I had an overall positive experience taking a chance on a '95 VF1 at auction about 3 years ago. Bid on it at auction sight unseen and won for $600. It was coming out of a larger shop and from pictures looked like it had been run recently but was not in pristine condition by any stretch. I did transport and rigging on my end to save money. Got it home and wired it up and it more or less was completely functional save for some door switches. I have invested some sweat equity doing repairs and what not but the machine overall runs well and has paid for itself many times over without much effort. With rigging and repairs I am into the machine for less than $5k. I have only had one failure so far, an encoder went out on one of the axis but the repair was cheap and pretty easy.

Things that made this vintage of Haas a good fit for a home shop:
The machine is old enough there is quite a bit of info floating around the net on it so fixing it yourself is doable.
A number of aftermarkets support the machine, I bought the encoder that failed from a third party for $300 or so. Other places sell reman drives, servos vfd's etc. for reasonable prices. Spares from dismantled machines pop up on ebay frequently.
Haas does still sell parts for these though their prices are high.
The control is an early version of the control everyone loves. It doesn't have all the Haas features you may be familiar with but has most of them and is rock solid.
This machine was put together with a lot of off the shelf components so if you are willing to do the home work you can get things cheap. I was able to max the memory out to the full 1mb by researching and buying $30 worth of chips and sockets to add to the main board.

The biggest issue with my machine is the oiling system wasn't kept up and that has caused some wear on the linear rails. The machine still cuts well, leaves good finishes, and gets me to +/- .003 with zero effort. Depending on how I value my time I think I could redo the entire oiling system, rails, and trucks on each axis and still come out ahead vs a 10 year old Haas.

 

[huleo]

Just my 2c, I would not walk, I would run away from that machine! If you gave it to me, I would take it to the scrap yard. Haas was notorious for weak, pathetic motors, and nothing is robust in them so expect worn out linears, screws, you name it.

Just saying..... but if you just want a project to stay away from your wife, this is the ticket! Some people are content with .010" backlash, a howling spindle that will make your ears bleed, and performance that will impress no one but a noob.

 

[metal-ica]

Take it if you want a project but don't expect to deliver parts with it in 5 weeks.

With Haas jacking up or obsoleting a bunch of parts on the older machines there is a market for that stuff on ebay if you want to spend the time parting it out.