What's new
What's new

Switching Haas from Red grease to purple grease or way oil

Kapster

Cast Iron
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Location
Ohio, USA
We have a 2014 VF2SS with the red grease and a 2016 Super mini mill 2 with the new purple grease. We are not a production shop or even a regular job shop. Usage is intermittent.

So when we bought the 2014, the red grease was supposed to be the best thing since sliced bread because of the lack of tramp oil. Then when we purchase the 2016 we find out they were having issues with the red grease hence the change to purple. And from some searching, it sounds like the red was supposed to be their fix from the original "brown" grease they used first around 2010.

The 2014 has around 350 feed cutting hours, the 2016 has around 225 hours. The 2014 has no significant grease usage, the 2016 canister is almost half gone! I know a shop with the exact age VF2 with almost 600 hours, no more grease usage then ours. Same thing, doesn't get run all day everyday.

I had the covers pulled back on the 2014 6 months ago or so and one of the rails was getting some surface rust on the top of it like it wasn't getting grease. Per our hfo's advise, I used a grease gun with the Haas red grease to grease each line and try to get things flowing again and halved the lube intervals. However doesn't seem like it made a difference. Sounds like the red grease will plug up from intermittent use, if you cut certain plastics, or incompatibility with some coolants.

Our apps engineer has said we could either switch it to way lube (which he said is better then grease anyway) or switch to purple but the purple requires changing the orifices.

Has anyone made either of these switches? If you did way lube, are the lube intervals changed? Does it use a lot of oil, as in a lot of tramp oil? Did you switch it or have the HFO do it? Is there any documentation from Haas on either of these retrofits?
 
I would also like to hear other people's experiences with this.

I'll keep it brief because I don't want to spread incorrect information. Myself I currently run two red-grease machines. I didn't modify anything at all. I have also heard about changing orifice sizes but I don't know the details for it. I was unofficially advised by the HFO to just add oil to the grease to thin it out, which is pretty much what I did. When we were priming one of the machines, I simply pumped a bunch of lube through the hoses and watched it come out the business ends. My logic was if it comes out then the lubrication effect would therefore be equal or better than the grease because the thinner purple stuff pumps easier than the red stuff. In my head, if anything I would just be using excess lube on the ways, which is perfectly fine with me. I MIGHT BE INCORRECT ABOUT THIS, but again I don't think it could be worse than the red grease.

Opinion time. The red grease is freakishly inconsistent and probably one of the worst design choices Haas has ever done. You might be referencing one of my rants on a different website (lol). I have two other machines from this era and plan to convert them as well, eventually.
 
I have heard horror stories about different greases chemically combining to produce abrasive grit. Maybe test by mixing some of each together and letting it sit for a few weeks, then feeling it for grit.
 
I am skeptical about abrasive grit, but it is true that some thickeners are incompatible, so that the thickeners kill each other and no longer hold the oil. I would do mhajicek's test and spread the mixture on a vertical surface alongside a layer of each component grease by itself, and see if the oil drops out worse from the mixture.
 
I would also like to hear other people's experiences with this.

I'll keep it brief because I don't want to spread incorrect information. Myself I currently run two red-grease machines. I didn't modify anything at all. I have also heard about changing orifice sizes but I don't know the details for it. I was unofficially advised by the HFO to just add oil to the grease to thin it out, which is pretty much what I did. When we were priming one of the machines, I simply pumped a bunch of lube through the hoses and watched it come out the business ends. My logic was if it comes out then the lubrication effect would therefore be equal or better than the grease because the thinner purple stuff pumps easier than the red stuff. In my head, if anything I would just be using excess lube on the ways, which is perfectly fine with me. I MIGHT BE INCORRECT ABOUT THIS, but again I don't think it could be worse than the red grease.

Opinion time. The red grease is freakishly inconsistent and probably one of the worst design choices Haas has ever done. You might be referencing one of my rants on a different website (lol). I have two other machines from this era and plan to convert them as well, eventually.


That's interesting, what oil did they recommend you mix in?

I would agree on the inconsistency of the red grease, maybe you don't mean in this context but it seems like a perfect way lube grease in the canister. Thin and seems like it would flow easy, you take a line off a linear truck and its thick as can be, plugged solid.

This gets more and more confusing. I was looking at the Haas lubrication chart. They originally used Mobil SHC 625 gear and bearing oil in their machines, then went to Red grease which is Mobil SHC 007. The purple Haas liquid grease(HLG) is a blend of SHC 007 and SHC 625. So I guess I don't understand why you cant put purple in a red grease machine. I was told we could use oil instead of red grease (I assume they mean SHC625) but I cant put purple in without changing orifices. So any mixing in the lines would be similar to purple grease, but I cant use purple.

I like the idea of grease but for our intermittent use the oil is probably the best thing since it doesn't dry out.
 
Crap...there's a typo in my earlier reply. I meant to say right off the bat that I have two former red-grease machines which I use purple inside.

Anyway, yeah I was (and still am) confused about the restriction change as well. One could pose that a looser restriction could lead to the grease "backing out" through the hoses, especially leading to the spindle (in fact the newer machines have a separate sensor for this). But I don't know if that's how it works since the lube cycle puts quite a bit of force through the lines. I would rather the machine pump grease for twice as long to prevent this problem, and have it use excess grease in the process, compared to the machine destroy itself due to lack of lubrication.

The old brown grease was silicon-based and very liquidy. I have a Minimill that uses it, but we haven't had issues with it. However, I'm a bit familiar with the stuff because people like to use it with our products, and I think it has fluorocarbons that eat rubber.

FWIW the purple grease container is marked "in emergency situations use SAE 140 oil." I've considered just using that exclusively and keeping an eye on things, but I have a lot of machines to risk.
 
Years ago I took a lubrication class at Trico Mfg who makes and sells oil and grease lubricators. They told us that if you change greases you have to clean out the old before squirting in the new or the soaps could have the chemical reaction as Mh said. If I were you I would contact the grease maker and ask them if it can be mixed with the old grease. Hass may not know the facts. I would think they would and not recommend mixing them, but better safe then sorry don't you think?
 
Red grease = shc007
purple grease = SHC007 + SHC 265

Mixing the two will have no bad reaction as we already know that SHC 625 is compatible with SHC 007.
 








 
Back
Top