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Need Haas VF lighting advice.

Tryhard

Aluminum
Joined
Oct 26, 2019
Anyone who has looked into this or done it, please chime in.

I have a 1998 Haas VF-OE with the screw in bulb fixture. Seems okay for a bait shop, but for inside a CNC machine it is very shadowy and quite dim. I am also blind as a bat and in need of a whole lot of light.

What is enough light without being too much? Wattage? Should I be looking at cool or warm light?

My solution is perhaps with something as easy as finding that perfect LED screw in bulb. But for flushing out as much shadow as possible I'm considering removing it and mounting two LED fixtures in the cabinet. Anyone have luck with the led 110v light panels or the ones in the chinese truck accessories section on ebay?

Guessing the old Haas light fixture circuit is 110v it would be ideal to find a set of waterproof 110v LED worklights and use that same power source. I do have in my possession a nice 'PRINCIPAL LED' power supply (110v/70W input to 12v5a/60W output), Not sure it would power even one of the LED truck lights that I saw and not sure I should be drawing power from the Haas for anything chinese.

Here are two that I'm looking at.

12v LED Truck Lights on Ebay
2x 4"INCH 90W Tri-Row LED Light Bar Flood Beam For Jeep Ford 4WD Offroad SUV ATV | eBay

110 LED light panels on Ebay
LED Flood Light 1000W 500W 300W 200W 150W 100W 50W 30W 20W 10W Spotlight Outdoor | eBay
 
on my vf2ss I replaced the bulbs with what's equivalent of 100w LEDs day light type bulbs. couldn't be happier. now my vf3 I went panel LED lighting on both sides as it is a much larger area.
 
on my vf2ss I replaced the bulbs with what's equivalent of 100w LEDs day light type bulbs. couldn't be happier. now my vf3 I went panel LED lighting on both sides as it is a much larger area.

What are the lights you chose in your VF3? AC or DC and how are they powered?
Please attach some pictures!
 
Go down the the first Home Depot or Lowes, find the largest screw-in LED bulb you can fit inside the housing.
I despise soft (warm) light source, but to each his own.

If the screw in incandescent worked fine, so will the LED.
 
Unfortunately I haven't been able to load pictures, and I'm not sure why ? they are AC and I just plug them in.
 
I just did exactly this yesterday in all of my haas mills. Cost $40 per machine.
The cabinet lights in a haas are 110v. So sourcing lights is easy.
I used these:
LEPOWER 50W LED Flood Light 2 Pack, Super Bright Outdoor Work Light With Plug, 250W Halogen Bulb Equivalent, IP66 Waterproof, 4000lm, 6000K, Outdoor Led Lights (White Light) - - Amazon.com
Worked great. These lights are 100-fold better than the factory stuff I did not hesitate for one second to yank out.

Thanks Wheelie, Your machine is lit up like gods photo booth! I dig the intense white. But I've seen some blueish looking white lights before that I wasn't crazy about. Seems no matter how bright they are it is still hard to see. Wanna make sure I don't buy the blueish ones.

Did you just connect both in to the existing 110v wire from the old fixture?
 
Thanks Wheelie, Your machine is lit up like gods photo booth! I dig the intense white. But I've seen some blueish looking white lights before that I wasn't crazy about. Seems no matter how bright they are it is still hard to see. Wanna make sure I don't buy the blueish ones.

Did you just connect both in to the existing 110v wire from the old fixture?

I don't know what your '98 is like? But, on my '06 vintage machines, there is a steel tube in each corner that the cabinet light cord runs up through. And, a little metal box that is affixed to the top of the cabinet with two screws. There are romex connectors in that box connecting the lights. I just lopped those connectors off. Fished the wire from the new lights up through those tubes. And, connected with simple crimp butt connectors. Easy peasy.
 
Unfortunately I haven't been able to load pictures, and I'm not sure why ? they are AC and I just plug them in.

You on a phone or a computer?
I can't figure out how to do anything on the phone version of this silly website.
 
I just did exactly this yesterday in all of my haas mills. Cost $40 per machine.
The cabinet lights in a haas are 110v. So sourcing lights is easy.
I used these:
LEPOWER 50W LED Flood Light 2 Pack, Super Bright Outdoor Work Light With Plug, 250W Halogen Bulb Equivalent, IP66 Waterproof, 4000lm, 6000K, Outdoor Led Lights (White Light) - - Amazon.com
Worked great. These lights are 100-fold better than the factory stuff I did not hesitate for one second to yank out.

View attachment 274781

View attachment 274782

Thanks for that link, I was leary on ordering online until someone I trusted posted them. i'll have to order a few sets. (for the inside of the Haas and the Fadal. The older haas if I recall are the old flood lamp light socket type that Fadal used. I changed mine(fadal) to a led flood lamp. havent burned out a bulb in 5 or 6 years now but I liek the leds you have so thats going to be in the works for the fadal

I have put these lights above the door on mine the other day. There LEd huskeys small ones got them for 21 bucks at at home depot. The picture sucks.
these are not really water proof persay as the have a vent in the back. but for the high intensity package they work much better than the haas orgs.




IMG_3020a.jpg
 
Wheelieking71, a closer look at your machine raises more questions.

What vises are you using? You like them? Also what's going on there with the spacing between them and how are they tied down?

The vises are GMT reverse premiums. I like them just fine. They do what a vise needs to do. Work every bit as good as a Kurt.
But, I paid a LOT less than GMT's current pricing. I don't think I would buy them at their current prices. I would probably go Kurt.
Simply because the quality, fit/finish on a Kurt is better, more consistent.
And, with my discount at MSC, my rep can almost get Kurts down in GMT territory when buying multiples.
The material between them is just 1" thick extruded aluminum bar. The only reason it exists is to fill the void that would normally fill with chips.
They are held in place by that 1/8" flat aluminum stock you can see bolted to the front of the table.
I can't stand the stupid chip-trays haas puts around their tables! The very first thing that happens to a haas that enters my shop is:
Those dumb chip trays get fired off and in to the dumpster!
I just utilized the holes left behind for that bracket. Nothing holds that 1" stock down on the back side. But, it never moves.
Sure makes blowing parts off a lot easier, less messy, and most of all, quicker.
 
a few weeks ago i upgraded the lights in my 93 vf2 using 2 12V ac/dc marine LEDs, 20 W each. The lighting circuit in my particular machine is AC, good for 60 watts total. there's a little bit of flicker with the lights which i suppose could be solved with a full wave rectifier, but it works good enough as-is for me.
 
The vises are GMT reverse premiums. I like them just fine. They do what a vise needs to do. Work every bit as good as a Kurt.
But, I paid a LOT less than GMT's current pricing. I don't think I would buy them at their current prices. I would probably go Kurt.
Simply because the quality, fit/finish on a Kurt is better, more consistent.
And, with my discount at MSC, my rep can almost get Kurts down in GMT territory when buying multiples.
The material between them is just 1" thick extruded aluminum bar. The only reason it exists is to fill the void that would normally fill with chips.
They are held in place by that 1/8" flat aluminum stock you can see bolted to the front of the table.
I can't stand the stupid chip-trays haas puts around their tables! The very first thing that happens to a haas that enters my shop is:
Those dumb chip trays get fired off and in to the dumpster!
I just utilized the holes left behind for that bracket. Nothing holds that 1" stock down on the back side. But, it never moves.
Sure makes blowing parts off a lot easier, less messy, and most of all, quicker.

A couple or three Kurt DX6 vises are in my near future think they are $587 and ship free with Amazon prime. Can your guy beat that?
 
A couple or three Kurt DX6 vises are in my near future think they are $587 and ship free with Amazon prime. Can your guy beat that?

If you can find better than these guys let me know.

6" Kurt Vise DX6 | Kurt Milling Machine Vise for Sale

$524.95 and $40 shipping

Edit : the DX6 I have one now and it’s pretty good, but not great.
I really want a couple Orange doubles, but don’t have the $4k
The mounting ears limit how close that you can mount them , and the exposed screw is just stupid. The steel screw covers that they give you need to be cut to length, but unless you run the same part all the time, at some point the cover will be sticking out one end or the other .... and you will bleed ... badly :)
That said they seem solid enough and the finish is good. I will probably by at least two more.

I’m still looking at the GMT doubles V2, but they are as Wheelie mentions, close to Kurt Pricing, not sure which is better.


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If you can find better than these guys let me know.

6" Kurt Vise DX6 | Kurt Milling Machine Vise for Sale

$524.95 and $40 shipping

I like All Industrial. Did see that pricing but when I put em in the cart the shipping price increases by 25% on each! Seems I'm getting punished for wanting more than one. Kinda sends a message.

Bought a brand new D688 a couple of years ago on Amazon. Love it and was certain I'd buy more. My luck is they had been around for decades as the most popular version and because I bought one they quit making them. Probably even buried the molds in the desert with the Atari E.T. cartridges.

Thanks for the reply!
 
Why anybody would ever use that vise in a CNC I will never understand.

As soon as I discovered the Kurt 3600, I pretty much wrote any flanged vise off to bridgeport territory.

Only because it’s better than nothing. The one in there now is off my Acer.
I haven’t bought the two for the Fadal because I don’t really want them, but kind of need something, dragging my feet to see if a bonus is in the cards
I have a kid in a $53k/yr private university, I be broke :)


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