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Haas or Pinnacle? buying new 3 and 5 axis machines: Which is better?

Snoopy-16

Plastic
Joined
Jun 18, 2014
Location
Adelaide, Australia
I am looking to buy 2 new machines, one 3 axis (with a 4 axis option) and one small/medium 5 axis.
I have now selected 2 possible options, that being:
Haas VF6 and HAAS UMC-750SS
or
Pinnacle LV147 and Pinnacle AX320 (both Pinnacle machines with HEIDENHAIN controllers)
Can anyone give there thoughts on these machines, especially by comparison between the Haas & Pinnacle brands?
 
i've never heard of pinnacle, but i'd stay away from haas, especially being so far away.
You can't be serious. Haas has local dealers and service all over the world, while Pinnacle is obviously a local brand name, could be anything from a Makino to a Tormach under the name plate. One would need to know what a "Pinnacle" was before making any judgement.

g-coder5 probably has a better handle on this than anyone else here.
 
Can you give me any specifics as to why you would recommend to stay away from the Haas brand?
Australia has good backup and service for Haas, and from what I can tell, they also keep a reasonable amount of spares on the shelf within Australia.
 
i've never heard of pinnacle, but i'd stay away from haas, especially being so far away.

Can you give me any specifics as to why you would recommend to stay away from the Haas brand?
Australia has good backup and service for Haas, and from what I can tell, they also keep a reasonable amount of spares on the shelf within Australia.
 
The Pinnacle is just another Taichung rebenaded machine popped out at the same factory that makes Johnford, Mighty Viper, Acra, Smart CNC, and several other brands. This is good and bad at the same time. One, If your distributor has any common sense and you need an out of stock part he can call and get one from one of the other brands. It could be bad as since they produce so many machines they may run out of parts for everything. GuoFeng Taichung will rebrand a machine for anyone with some money so don't be surprised if they are out of stock.

They make a pot load of parts for Hurco (Hence why they look the same) and Hurco being as big as they are will get priority. When My two Hurco VM-20I's came in they had the wrong electrical cabinet doors and I waited several months for a piece of sheet metal with hinges.

A quick search of Pinnacle shows most of their customer base is in the UK so definitely check the local distributor out. The LV147 weighs in at 9000 Kilos verses the Haas VF6 has another 1000 kilos on it. I would be very leery of a machine that weighed less than a Haas, Especially one with Taiwanese Casting.

I know how you Aussies love your Fanuc's so swapping to a Heidenhain control may take some getting used to. They use some odd code sometimes that I can't get my head around. However, The Heidenhain does process really quick so if you are doing a lot of HSM strategies it will probably run all over the Haas, especially the 5X. Haas is Fanuc friendly so you just have to weigh out what you would prefer.

Haas, hands down will have the best service of the two. If I blow a spindle at 17:00 on tuesday there will be a new one with a tech before 06:00 Wednesday. Those vans are pretty well stocked up for most emergencies.

You will get the Haas naysayers that are running Okuma, Mori and other high end machines but anymore the tooling is the limiting factor of a machines capability (IMO). For general machining Haas will perform just as well. Unless you are trying to hold sub micron tolerances at warp speed the Haas is the best ROI. Many people still think of Haas when they first hit the market and couldn't pull a greasy string out of a cat's ass. They had the nickname 'Haaspower" because of the over inflated 15HP spindle that was more like 5HP. Now you get a proper 30HP spindle standard and can go up to 50HP for only $9k more and its brute force, even Okuma doesn’t offer that.

My advice, stay away from the Taichung. So far I've had the Johnford SDMC-6000 (Identical to the Pinnacle DV). Nearly $1 Million and spent more time down than making parts. A You-Ji VTL that never made a tool change without kicking out a keep bit relay # that had to be reset every time. (Changing 120 pound tool holder blocks manually over head suck).

Here's a pic of my Junkford and a pick from there website of the DV. Aside from the sheet metal it is identical down to the color of the tool changer. Nothing but grief....

Junkford.jpgScreen Shot 2020-09-18 at 1.46.03 PM.jpgScreen Shot 2020-09-18 at 1.46.33 PM.jpg
 
Can you give me any specifics as to why you would recommend to stay away from the Haas brand?
Australia has good backup and service for Haas, and from what I can tell, they also keep a reasonable amount of spares on the shelf within Australia.

Because theres some people on here that think a Haas machine is worthless and can't cut anything but aluminum...in actually Haas machines are very capable and are in shops around the world in pretty significant numbers.
 
I have a few thoughts on this.

I have four machines on the shop floor that were made in Taichung and my experience has been very different to gcoders. I have two lathes that were made by Victor (although they are in Taichung, I think they are independent, but idk) they are rock solid machines, built like tanks and have been making chips for us in a heavy duty fashion for over ten years now. They have some fit-and-finish issues that are irritating (bad seal design in the tailstock drag cylinder that dumps the tank of hydraulic oil into the coolant tank when it eats the seals, stupidly positioned limit switches on the tailstock that get torn apart by chips, door window that extends too far behind the chuck so gets broken by drill slugs if you don't take precautions to mitigate it, etc.) but the raw performance and ability to survive a crash are great. They are basically carbon-clone copies of Mori SL machines.

Barbter's comments are on point though - the control integration on the Victors is generic Fanuc with zero bells and whistles. Pretty much bolted on and shipped out. Works fine on a dumb lathe, and probably on a 3 axis VMC. Would be extremely wary of this on a more complex machine or anything-other-than-Fanuc control.

The other two Taichung built machines I have on the shop floor are Hurcos. They are not necessarily comparable with other Taichung built machines due to US/UK oversight, proprietary control integration etc., but they are still Taichung built iron underneath it all. Mechanically, they are heavy, solid machines that perform well. One is a VMX64/50T which is specification comparable to the machines you are considering, however in line with Gcoder's comments on weight, it is much heavier than either machine you are considering, like 5 metric tonnes heavier, for the same size of machine.

In short, there is no way in hell I'd swap any of my Taichung built machines for an on-paper equivalent Haas, but the one you are looking at doesn't necessarily seem to be built like the ones I have. There is also absolutely no way I'd consider Haas when shopping for a large 50 taper VMC, and absolutely no way I'd consider an off-brand Taiwanese brand when shopping for a 5 axis mill (and probably not Haas either, but that would depend on my requirements).

I'm curious how you arrived at these options?
 
Having run and programmed a UMC750 5 ax Haas. I wouldn't hesitate to get one, BUT, I don't know the other brand at all. Take that at face value...
 
Of the two choices you gave us I'd go with Haas 100%.
Bigger brand, bigger/better service, and most likely a much better machine. It's a no brainer.
:cheers:
 
In Taiwan there are some firms that specialize in rotaries and (two axis rotaries) for 5 axis applications that are really good. ~ For example the $100K trunnion used on the Okuma Genos M460V-5ax is made in Taiwan by a separate specialist firm.

@Snoopy-16
Like what @Gregor said WHY those two choices ???? (Australia has a lot of options ?).

@SeymourDumore Empwoer had or is continuing to have a super bad time with his UMC 500 (lot of main board failures that have not been resolved ). Although HAAS is pretty much everywhere. Not sure how one would connect @Empwoer to "Swissmak". The re-booted UMC 750 new-NEWER-newest "incarnation" looks somewhat promising.

Speaking of which @GenericDefault / Perry ~ You are in Taiwan - do you know these Pinacle guys ? Are you able to take a "Gander" ?

They seem to have won awards for this an' that, the machines don't look too bad (like their B axis mills) - but I can't imagine they are that cheap either ? When you put Heidenhain controls and faster spindles on stuff it adds significantly to the price of the base iron + high quality two axis rotary / trunnions. ( 5 arc second range in some instances. ). + possibility of linear scales etc.

Outside of Quaser variants ~ Arn't Litz and Feeler mostly OK ? (as machines ) not really comparable to the HAAS's HFO footprint etc. ?

@Snoopy-16 What kind of parts, materials and tolerances are you going for ?
 
Outside of Quaser variants ~ Arn't Litz and Feeler mostly OK ? (as machines ) not really comparable to the HAAS's HFO footprint etc. ?

If Feeler had the support Haas does I would have a hard time choosing. At Star I had (4) Feeler VMP23-A's and they were little beast of machines. Heavy, Plenty of power, Heavy spindles, Just all around great budget machine.

Here's a quick vid of us doing some brackets with a lot of jumping around. Notice there is no axis noise. The loudest thing on the machine is the tool changer
CNC Machining precut waterjet brackets to save material cost on Feeler CNC mill - YouTube

Here's another one hogging some AL with a 3" face mill on a part hel in a vice on a vacuum pallet. Even with all that stackup the only chatter is when the programmer gouges the stock on the Z plunge.
Feeler CNC Test Cuts - YouTube
 
Can you give me any specifics as to why you would recommend to stay away from the Haas brand?
Australia has good backup and service for Haas, and from what I can tell, they also keep a reasonable amount of spares on the shelf within Australia.

their next gen control machines have a pretty shitty reputation, especially 5 axis stuff. our UMC500SS has been sitting for months because they cant figure out whats wrong with it.
 
Because theres some people on here that think a Haas machine is worthless and can't cut anything but aluminum...in actually Haas machines are very capable and are in shops around the world in pretty significant numbers.

before you make assumptions about me, we have 2 haas lathes, 3 VF3's, VF2, VF4 and UMC500SS
the VF machines are classic control and pretty reliable, cut aluminum and cast steels. the UMC is a piece of shit because out of the 9 months we've owned it, it wasnt broken for about 3 months total. i'm not exactly talking out of my ass...
 








 
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