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Maincon upgrade process has begun on a 2004 Haas VF2

Turbo442

Aluminum
Joined
Sep 3, 2011
Location
North Plains, OR
Well, the Maincon upgrade has not started yet but the parts showed up!



I will try to document my Maincon upgrade experience to help others make an informed decision.

What is the Maincon upgrade?

Its a hardware / software upgrade that allows some older Haas machines to update to a newer hardware / software spec.

What machines can be upgraded?

Haas mills and lathes with the 10" LCD or CRT using the 68k/coldfire PCB and brushless servo motors. (The procedure says Jan 1997 through Aug 2003 although this does not seem to be exact)

What comes in the upgrade kit?

The kit includes the entire 15" LCD display/keypad, the gen 3 remote jog handle and Coldfire II Maincon PCB. Also misc cables and mounting hardware.

What software version does my machine get upgraded to?

This will update software to 17.xxx depending on your hardware. This is called the 'classic control' by Haas. Basically the latest hardware / software motion control before the 'next generation' control which was released in 2016. Here is a comparison between classic control and the next generation control. https://diy.haascnc.com/reference-d...sic-haas-control-feature-comparison#gsc.tab=0

What does it cost?

The parts and labor will be quoted by your local HFO. The hardware kit is $5995 after your cores are returned. I was told the cores do not have to be working.

What is the part number of the Maincon upgrade?

Confirm with your HFO for your machine, my documents show :

15" PENDANT / MAINCON UPGRADE KIT (MILL: PN 93-4421) (LATHE PN 93-4420)

Do my software options carry over to the Maincon upgrade without cost?

I was told yes, the tech will put the original options back on the machine no additional charge. The procedure also calls this out.

What if I do not have the remote jog handle option on my original configuration?

From what I understand, the new gen 3 remote jog handle is required for this upgrade and will be included.
 

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Maincon upgrade procedure is included.
 

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Looking forward to successful completion.!
Please share as it goes. Local HFO also added $1200 for software upgrade......
 
Upgrade is scheduled for this Monday. I asked the HFO to throw the cat40 drawbar pull test in the truck as well. Will let you guys know how things turn out.
 
Let me know how this goes, I have an 02 vf5 with trunnion that is adding random brackets on bigger programs.(turns code to text event). Usually I have no problems with programs under 1/2 meg. I am told this is the fix. I was quoted the same parts price as you but 16hrs labor and 4 hours travel. I am just curious what you end up with it in actual install time. 2 full days seems like alot but maybe its not I don't know.
 
Let me know how this goes, I have an 02 vf5 with trunnion that is adding random brackets on bigger programs.(turns code to text event). Usually I have no problems with programs under 1/2 meg. I am told this is the fix. I was quoted the same parts price as you but 16hrs labor and 4 hours travel. I am just curious what you end up with it in actual install time. 2 full days seems like alot but maybe its not I don't know.

I just had the X rails replaced on my OM2A and it took the techs THREE FULL DAYS. I called BS and am still waiting for the manager to adjust the labor and get back to me. Day one they almost got the rails off. Day 2 they got the new ones on but didn't bring the square so they spent the a couple hours trying to align off a 123 block until I realized this and gave them a 246 block. Day 3 they brought the square and it took them 7 hours to align the already installed x and y after 5 hours I realized they didn't have the square strapped and it kept moving on them when they jogged the table to test and strapped it for them then it only took another 2 hours to align. Of course 2/3 of the way through we realized the original tech's assessment that the trucks were causing the racket was inaccurate and now I have to order ball screw kit and bearing.

Point is... labor GREATLY depends on who is doing it. Neither of them had ever even seen the underside of an OM table and told me they had to go to Home Depot to get a metric hex bit (which I had and gave them). If the tech has done 10 maincon upgrades... 6 hours. If its their first one and they spend 8 hours on the phone asking questions expect a few days.
 
I just had the X rails replaced on my OM2A and it took the techs THREE FULL DAYS. I called BS and am still waiting for the manager to adjust the labor and get back to me. Day one they almost got the rails off. Day 2 they got the new ones on but didn't bring the square so they spent the a couple hours trying to align off a 123 block until I realized this and gave them a 246 block. Day 3 they brought the square and it took them 7 hours to align the already installed x and y after 5 hours I realized they didn't have the square strapped and it kept moving on them when they jogged the table to test and strapped it for them then it only took another 2 hours to align. Of course 2/3 of the way through we realized the original tech's assessment that the trucks were causing the racket was inaccurate and now I have to order ball screw kit and bearing.

Point is... labor GREATLY depends on who is doing it. Neither of them had ever even seen the underside of an OM table and told me they had to go to Home Depot to get a metric hex bit (which I had and gave them). If the tech has done 10 maincon upgrades... 6 hours. If its their first one and they spend 8 hours on the phone asking questions expect a few days.

Yeah I agree 100%. I have been doing robotics field service in the semiconductor industry for 20 years now. Very similar situitation, but my customers are extremely demanding and our billable hourly rate is much higher. I started this upgrade process by tracking down the local HFO service manager and sitting down in his office early Monday morning. It was about the only time I could catch those guys. Any rate, this upgrade sounds fairly complicated as far as the average service call goes. Obviously a lot can go wrong with software configurations. My HFO claims they have done 15 of these recently and one tech has done them all. So I waited for his schedule to accommodate me. Trust me I have no problems kicking some one out of my shop if I see things begin to go wrong. I really have no problem if they bring some one along to train but I won't let it extend my billable hours. Honestly I am not too worried (famous last words). I have the machine running very well, all maintenance items are complete, all solenoids, relays, options, probing are functioning correctly. I will demonstrate all machine functionality before the upgrade starts. All parameters currently match what listed in the book. We will see how things go...
 
Trust me I have no problems kicking some one out of my shop if I see things begin to go wrong. I really have no problem if they bring some one along to train but I won't let it extend my billable hours. ...
Sage advice! Oh how I wish I hadn't been so naïve. As a new owner I assumed that all techs were at a reasonable level of expertise. I should have known better when he couldn't wire single phase and dropped a tool from the changer accidently on to my table. I am afraid there is an extremely wide range of competence that you wouldn't expect around sophisticated equipment.
 
Quick update. I will follow up with details when I have more time. The the HFO tech arrived Yesterday to install the Maincon upgrade. Luckily I got a very experienced tech as requested. It took him about 4 hours to get everything installed and running. He was flying on the keypad. I was having trouble following everything he did it was so fast. I kept him around another 2 hours waiting for me to get the probe batteries. We tested everything before and after, everything looks good. Had to call in to Haas to get the new option codes. Took less than 1 minute to get what he needed. He calibrated the tool-setter and probe and got that functioning for he first time. I had a bunch of VQC stuff missing and some incorrect parameters from my original config apparently keeping the probing and tool-setter from running on my original 13.xxx setup. Everything works great so far. He ran the spindle 10k forward to 10k reverse, spindle handled it fine. Air blast, coolant, auger, tool change, p cool all work fine. He used a program haas provides to calculate the new parameters. It took a little bit of fooling around to get the parameters correct for all the installed options. The spindle parameters were probably the trickiest. Setting all the parameters is the challenging part of this job for sure.


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Oh and I gave the tech a $100 tip for doing a good job. I know when I was a mechanic stuff like that was really appreciated.


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Where does that tray underneath come from? That is one thing I didn't get.

Also, I don't think the pendant is standard across the board unless perhaps you already had one.
 
Where does that tray underneath come from? That is one thing I didn't get.

Also, I don't think the pendant is standard across the board unless perhaps you already had one.

The tray underneath came from my original keypad/monitor housing. The tech mentioned that some people had to modify their original tray to get it to work with the new keyboard / monitor console. In my case the tray just bolted to the bottom of the new unit. Here is a photo of my original unit.
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. It's a nice place to store shit / cell phone/ tools

Regarding the remote jog handle (haas seems to call the keyboard / monitor console the 'pendant'. I was told by Selway that the remote jog handle comes as part of the upgrade no charge. I was not charged for it on my quote. I was also told at one point that it was required for this upgrade. That does not make sense to me since it has been listed as a option for years on the VF series machines, even on the next Gen controls.




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