Haas UMC500 = biggest flop i've ever seen.

the UMC line has got to be the worst product i've ever seen. my new job has one (we had one at my previous place, bought brand new 500ss, ended up threatening with a lawsuit to get haas to take it back after numerous issues they couldnt fix) and since day one of it being hooked up the problems started. coolant vfd faults that would show up randomly, then the drive would work fine. chip evac sucks donkey balls, they get packed in between the casting and conveyor, coolant would drain very slowly. then one day it just decided to say fuck you - would boot up straight into e stop mode, no alarms nothing. after waiting 2 weeks for HFO to come look at it, the control panel motherboard was out. the tech 'happened' to have one on his truck, replaced and worked fine for 1 day. i come in this morning and its the same coolant vfd shit again. tech last night told me the new board would fix it - NOT...
so this is 2 2020 umc 500's i've personally had MAJOR issues with, along with the numerous nightmares from friends in the industry.
On paper these machines look damn good for the money, and if they actually worked at least as well as advertised, they'd be incredible, but it seems like haas quality has gone down DRASTICALLY across the line in the past 3-5 years. what a shame, used to be they made great machines at very attractive prices. nowadays for a few % more you can get a much better product that wont be nearly the amount of headache you'll have with hass.

i cant wait to get rid of our 11 VF2's, VF4 and UMC. replacing with GF mikron automation cells.

I have to wonder if anyone who has bought one of those HMC shaped objects has ever used a real HMC.

LOL I have been to two different shops that had a HAAS HMC parked right next to a DMG MORI HMC. In both cases the HAAS was treated like an inside joke. At one shop, it was bought to rough a hard metal part to near net, for finishing on a five axis. It was never able to do the job, and was essentially abandoned in place.

No surprise both were big corporate places where the manufacturing team didn't really have control over purchasing. I think that HMC was another example of machines that sound awesome on paper - so it was an easy decision for purchasing.

Folks have okay experiences with the VF platform, and think that HAAS can be the solution for any application where "good enough" will do. Getting stuck with a lame machine is an expensive mistake. It seems crazy that HAAS can keep selling those machines that will never actually meet the performance specs in the brochure, you'd think it would have caught up to them by now.

boosted said:

LOL I have been to two different shops that had a HAAS HMC parked right next to a DMG MORI HMC. In both cases the HAAS was treated like an inside joke. At one shop, it was bought to rough a hard metal part to near net, for finishing on a five axis. It was never able to do the job, and was essentially abandoned in place.

No surprise both were big corporate places where the manufacturing team didn't really have control over purchasing. I think that HMC was another example of machines that sound awesome on paper - so it was an easy decision for purchasing.

Folks have okay experiences with the VF platform, and think that HAAS can be the solution for any application where "good enough" will do. Getting stuck with a lame machine is an expensive mistake. It seems crazy that HAAS can keep selling those machines that will never actually meet the performance specs in the brochure, you'd think it would have caught up to them by now.

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just goes to show how many ignorant people there are

boosted said:

LOL I have been to two different shops that had a HAAS HMC parked right next to a DMG MORI HMC. In both cases the HAAS was treated like an inside joke. At one shop, it was bought to rough a hard metal part to near net, for finishing on a five axis. It was never able to do the job, and was essentially abandoned in place.

No surprise both were big corporate places where the manufacturing team didn't really have control over purchasing. I think that HMC was another example of machines that sound awesome on paper - so it was an easy decision for purchasing.

Folks have okay experiences with the VF platform, and think that HAAS can be the solution for any application where "good enough" will do. Getting stuck with a lame machine is an expensive mistake. It seems crazy that HAAS can keep selling those machines that will never actually meet the performance specs in the brochure, you'd think it would have caught up to them by now.

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Well I think that's the clever thing about HAAS is that they don't claim very much of anything in terms of actual metrics.

Buuuut "You can do it with a HAAS" -

YES,

YES you can

assuming you have two cylindrical grinders, one or two surface grinders (dedicated to different materials) one jig grinder, wire EDM and various metal finishers ... (Air) Spin tables, moore indexers / tilt tables etc.

The problem is certain (slightly tighter) tolerances cost the same or more no matter what you do in terms of buying "cheaper" machines.

These days it's more about that dreaded word "productivity". I.e. do more with less and faster - (more accurately and with better surface finishes.) + handle difficult materials.

I think the Haas horizontals are supposed to be getting better, and some of their 50 taper machines seem cost vs. value useful.

With their service portal and online technical literature they are pretty transparent about 'Expectations" in terms of positional tolerances for 5 axis and how that plays out on real parts.

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The UMC 500 "concept" is a really good one; if... stupid if , if I was baller that had waaaay too much time on his hands then I'd be tempted to buy a UMC 500 and tear it down sheet metal off, and try to devise at least a geometric (engineering hardware) and kinematic (mathematical and software) "fix" .

It's frustrating to be on the sidelines and witness as it is "Fixable"... But all of that seems constrained to how HAAS themselves go about things.

They Doooo have some amazing equipment in house to doooo stuff, pretty much the best of the best/ best in the world machines to build machines ~ almost. And at scale.


______________

The HAAS VF stuff has been good/ more than pretty good "The new Bridgeport" ~ There's just some weird stuff that seems to be falling between the cracks (more recently) as they scale up and go BIG with their new facility in Nevada (I believe).

empwoer said:

just goes to show how many ignorant people there are

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For some reason people have a really hard time separating individual machine lines from the brand. They think that all Mazaks or all Okumas are the same level of performance/quality, or in this case that their HAAS UMC will be as "robust" as the VF-3.

I am constantly likening it cars. Expecting a Ford Fiat to be built like a Ford GT-40 is foolish. Buying a five axis HAAS is like buying a Kia for track day - it might spec out okay, but the lack of pedigree will likely shine through before you are done with it.

boosted said:

For some reason people have a really hard time separating individual machine lines from the brand. They think that all Mazaks or all Okumas are the same level of performance/quality, or in this case that their HAAS UMC will be as "robust" as the VF-3.

I am constantly likening it cars. Expecting a Ford Fiat to be built like a Ford GT-40 is foolish. Buying a five axis HAAS is like buying a Kia for track day - it might spec out okay, but the lack of pedigree will likely shine through before you are done with it.

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I think that's pretty spot on / good observation.

With for example MAZAK there's a number of things I'd never invest in , specific models / "bad histories" to avoid, but that doesn't mean that there aren't some things that are pretty good to excellent in their wheelhouse.

Navigating around that is tricky and very few card carrying machinists have the hours in a day to attempt to parse that all out.

Sometimes it takes months to piece together information (in some cases - like pulling teeth) to get a handle on a platform or machine or particular model.

I have replaced more parts on a 4-year old VM2 that only cut PEEK than I can recall which included 2-spindles, 2-spindle motors, X ballscrew and nut, y ballscrew and nut, x servo motor, a vector drive @ $7-grand, and 7-thru-the-spindle pressure rotating unions just to name more than a few. The machine could not hold position across 14-parts located 1-inch apart and HFO tech's solution was to G10 every position to mitigate the machines incapability and if I needed help to contact their apps department. Thankfully I was able to sell it to the next happy owner.

cameraman said:

Well I think that's the clever thing about HAAS is that they don't claim very much or anything in terms of actual metrics.

Buuuut "You can do it with a HAAS" -

YES,

YES you can

assuming you have two cylindrical grinders, one or two surface grinders (dedicated to different materials) one jig grinder, wire EDM and various metal finishers ... (Air) Spin tables, moore indexers / tilt tables etc.

The problem is certain (slightly tighter) tolerances cost the same or more no matter what you do in terms of buying "cheaper" machines.

These days it's more about that dreaded word "productivity". I.e. do more with less and faster - (more accurately and with better surface finishes.) + handle difficult materials.

I think the Haas horizontals are supposed to be getting better, and some of their 50 taper machines seem cost vs. value useful.

With their service portal and online technical literature they are pretty transparent about 'Expectations" in terms of positional tolerances for 5 axis and how that plays out on real parts.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________


The UMC 500 "concept" is a really good one; if... stupid if , if I was baller that had waaaay too much time on his hands then I'd be tempted to buy a UMC 500 and tear it down sheet metal off, and try to devise at least a geometric (engineering hardware) and kinematic (mathematical and software) "fix" .

It's frustrating to be on the sidelines and witness as it is "Fixable"... But all of that seems constrained to how HAAS themselves go about things.

They Doooo have some amazing equipment in house to doooo stuff, pretty much the best of the best/ best in the world machines to build machines ~ almost. And at scale.


______________

The HASS VF stuff has been good/ more than pretty good "The new Bridgeport" ~ There's just some weird stuff that seems to be falling between the cracks as they scale up and go BIG with their new facility in Nevada (I believe).

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a great start would be at least machines that dont break down every day... then move on to making them more accurate/perform better. as of now, they cant even function well.

Emma99 said:

I have replaced more parts on a 4-year old VM2 that only cut PEEK than I can recall which included 2-spindles, 2-spindle motors, X ballscrew and nut, y ballscrew and nut, x servo motor, a vector drive @ $7-grand, and 7-thru-the-spindle pressure rotating unions just to name more than a few. The machine could not hold position across 14-parts located 1-inch apart and HFO tech's solution was to G10 every position to mitigate the machines incapability and if I needed help to contact their apps department. Thankfully I was able to sell it to the next happy owner.

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jesus fuck, thats terrible. glad you were able to get rid of it.

Emma99 said:

I have replaced more parts on a 4-year old VM2 that only cut PEEK than I can recall which included 2-spindles, 2-spindle motors, X ballscrew and nut, y ballscrew and nut, x servo motor, a vector drive @ $7-grand, and 7-thru-the-spindle pressure rotating unions just to name more than a few. The machine could not hold position across 14-parts located 1-inch apart and HFO tech's solution was to G10 every position to mitigate the machines incapability and if I needed help to contact their apps department. Thankfully I was able to sell it to the next happy owner.

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Sounds like you need a Brother

empwoer said:

a great start would be at least machines that dont break down every day... then move on to making them more accurate/perform better. as of now, they cant even function well.

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Aye I hear you ,(the main thrust of problems you have experienced. ),

UMC-500 flooding, not ready for production

But goes hand in hand,^^^ (weird thermal and geometric problems towards end of thread. ).

'cuz after you've gone 20 rounds fixing a machine's (mechatronics) to only then find out that you are "geometrically" flumped no matter what you do...

AND HAAS HFO's etc. feeling that they have done their job and other things are factory / design / engineering issues they have no "Control" over.

What are your thoughts on the larger UMC units? Ok or also poor quality? I had a customer buy a UMC500 a few years ago and they were ok with it but they had old beat Haas VF so I think their view on quality was skewed.

Emma99 said:

I have replaced more parts on a 4-year old VM2 that only cut PEEK than I can recall which included 2-spindles, 2-spindle motors, X ballscrew and nut, y ballscrew and nut, x servo motor, a vector drive @ $7-grand, and 7-thru-the-spindle pressure rotating unions just to name more than a few. The machine could not hold position across 14-parts located 1-inch apart and HFO tech's solution was to G10 every position to mitigate the machines incapability and if I needed help to contact their apps department. Thankfully I was able to sell it to the next happy owner.

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But wait, there's more...you forgot to mention that the control on that pile would corrupt its program files about every 6 months (putting random "!" everywhere) and the only fix was to delete them all and re-load.

Shop Supply Guru said:

What are your thoughts on the larger UMC units? Ok or also poor quality? I had a customer buy a UMC500 a few years ago and they were ok with it but they had old beat Haas VF so I think their view on quality was skewed.

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anything built in the last 3-4 years is trash IMO. take it for what its worth.

if i were starting my own shop right now, i'd go doosan, as much as i hate fanuc, their reliability and performance is 10x that of haas, for a tiny % more money

Interesting stuff. I was watching a YouTube video by Tom Bailey about his race/street cars and in the background was a new UMC-1600. It was never working. Finally he addressed it as people kept asking and the thing has been non functional for him since day one. You can watch the videos where he talks about it if you want. TLDR is the machine could never hold tolerances and he's been going in circles with Haas for months now.

My CNC Machine Is An Expensive Paperweight! Ice Cream Truck Almost Killed Derek + Roadkill Nights - YouTube

Jaxian said:

Interesting stuff. I was watching a YouTube video by Tom Bailey about his race/street cars and in the background was a new UMC-1600. It was never working. Finally he addressed it as people kept asking and the thing has been non functional for him since day one. You can watch the videos where he talks about it if you want. TLDR is the machine could never hold tolerances and he's been going in circles with Haas for months now.

My CNC Machine Is An Expensive Paperweight! Ice Cream Truck Almost Killed Derek + Roadkill Nights - YouTube

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unfortunately, i'm not surprised a single bit. sucks

Emma99 said:

I have replaced more parts on a 4-year old VM2 that only cut PEEK than I can recall which included 2-spindles, 2-spindle motors, X ballscrew and nut, y ballscrew and nut, x servo motor, a vector drive @ $7-grand, and 7-thru-the-spindle pressure rotating unions just to name more than a few. The machine could not hold position across 14-parts located 1-inch apart and HFO tech's solution was to G10 every position to mitigate the machines incapability and if I needed help to contact their apps department. Thankfully I was able to sell it to the next happy owner.

Click to expand...

Interesting. I cut Ti and 17-4 on a 2015 VF-3SS with trunnion for six years. We had to replace two spindle motors because the TSC rotary union was leaking, but after that was replaced it was solid. I have heard there were a lot of problems with the "Next Gen" control in '16 and for a few years; I hope they've fixed that by now.

Quit your whining. My boss bought some custom built multispindle drilling machines from China. I have both of them torn down completely to correct all the problems. Like regular radial bearings on the Z Axis ball screw, and the locknut is tapped crooked, the linear rails are 0.020” out of parallel, all flat plates are warped and there are shims everwhere!! Controls? A chinese PC running a chinese version of Windows XP, and it is two years old.

garyhlucas said:

Quit your whining. My boss bought some custom built multispindle drilling machines from China. I have both of them torn down completely to correct all the problems. Like regular radial bearings on the Z Axis ball screw, and the locknut is tapped crooked, the linear rails are 0.020” out of parallel, all flat plates are warped and there are shims everwhere!! Controls? A chinese PC running a chinese version of Windows XP, and it is two years old.

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Is the rice and soy sauce tanks sturdy at least?