50 Taper Milling Machine

[Boltonaero]

We are looking to purchase a 50 Taper machine. Anyone know how the HAAS 50 Taper machine holds up with nickel and titanium parts? The price looks reasonable but we are concerned about performance and how they hold up. Any thoughts?

[glovebox20]

I Program/run a 2008 HAAS VF-3 50 Tapper it dose just fine for genral appications. I machine mild steel and Alum and my only gripe is the spindle has some grear chatter at higher RPMs. Out of the 3 or so 50 tapper machines I've ran, I would say this is probably the least rigid of the three(Komo, OKK, Win-tec). However that dose not bother me too much being we were able to to most of the bells and whiltles with the machine (probe, VCQ, TSC), and it is the easiest G&M code I've ran.

However, if Rigidity/performance is the most important to you, I would proably look else where. Don't get me wrong, The VF-3 50 tapper is a good machine and I love running it, but you get what you pay for.

[Adam Worth]

They offer a great quality-price ratio. I really think it would be a good investment. Hope it works out for you!
Have a great day.
__________________
Adam Worth
cnc milling machines
milling machine

[murphdog]

I would suggest talking to your Haas dealer, but I think that I was told that a 50 & 40 taper machine both share the same iron. Just different spindles.
Murphdog

[Pondo]

Out of the 3 or so 50 tapper machines I've ran, I would say this is probably the least rigid of the three(Komo, OKK, Win-tec).

I can't speak for the Win-Tec or Komo machines, but I ran 2 OKK VM-7's and a Haas VF-7 at the same time. The VF-7 was a little bit less rigid when taking heavy cuts, but the OKKs were down for repair for extended periods too often. The VF-7 had 1 problem with a gear shift solenoid in the 8 years I worked there and it was repaired by a Haas service tech the next day. The OKKs probes and toolsetters were a PITA to program Vs. the Haas conversational setup. Plus the laser toolsetter in the OKK was too unprotected from coolant and chips and needed cleaning and adjustment way too often compared to Mazaks, Fadals, Makinos, DMUs and Haas machines. The OKK lasers were difficult to set and calibrate too. We didn't allow our operators to do it, it had to be done by a trained maintenance man. The operators set up and calibrated the ones on the Mazak and Haas machines. Right out of the box, the OKKs couldn't interpolate a circle close enough for the mold work we wanted to run in them. OKK had to come out and adjust the machine and it was down for over a week, so that kind of biased my view of them from the start. I'm not saying OKKs are terrible machines, but for what they cost you could almost get a Mazak. Or 2 Haas machines.
The OKK had a nice setup in the controller - it links up to your network and gets its programs out of a folder in your PC like the Mazaks and Okumas and some newer Fanuc controls. For shops with a lot of machines or where the programming department is not near the machines it works really well. I don't know if the newer Haas machines have this yet or not, my newest machine is from 2008 and does not have it. The OKKs were new in 2004 and had it already.