How are Haas machines?

[pwilson101]

A friend of mine is going to start a shop and bought three Haas vertical machining centers with an "A" axis so far. He says he is going to stick with Haas, but I don't know why. Are they superior machines compared to say, Mazaks? What are they strong on and weak on? I know they have their own controls...are they any good? Comparable to most Fanuc controllers? I am going to help him get going and I will be working on the machine tomorrow so thought I'd get an idea of what I'm getting into....

Thanks for any input....

[Machineit]

A friend of mine is going to start a shop and bought three Haas vertical machining centers with an "A" axis so far. He says he is going to stick with Haas, but I don't know why. Are they superior machines compared to say, Mazaks? What are they strong on and weak on? I know they have their own controls...are they any good? Comparable to most Fanuc controllers? I am going to help him get going and I will be working on the machine tomorrow so thought I'd get an idea of what I'm getting into....

Thanks for any input....

So, here we go again. What is your real purpose in posting this. Obviously your friend has made his decision and is moving forward. Are you now going to try and change his mind and make him sell his three machine and buy others!

Please just go to work and enjoy the machines. Get the manual and read. Enjoy the ease of the control.

[eaglemike]

The control is super easy (for me anyway) to use. The tech support on the phone has been very good in my experience. If I need service, the local HFO always finds a way to get it taken care of. (Should I knock on wood for luck at this point?) When I went to buy a new machine, I really didn't consider another brand. (I did have a little glitch we're working out) Down time on my Haas machines has been very low.

Compared to the bad old days of the unreliable controls where I used to work, the Haas stuff has been heaven.

Does this help?

[pwilson101]

lol good lord machineit, why be so defensive? apparently you are in love with haas machines, which would indicate they are fine machines. I just wanted to know the pluses and minuses cuz I'm curious like that. no hidden agenda to get my friend to change machines. but yes, somewhere I heard they were "cheap" machines, so I was just curious. maybe this is the wrong place to ask for an opinion like that on haas machines.

thanks eaglemike for the input. I was curious if there were some major flaws or anything that stood out on the plus-side. sounds like the control is a plus.

seemed easy enough (I just came back from the shop) - but we couldn't get past the x servo alarm. when we went to home it, the x-axis load kept climbing and when it hit 236% it kicked out an alarm "X SERVO ERROR T". also got "X AXIS SERVO F". Sometimes had a "DISABLED AXIS" alarm when I tried to jog it in the x-axis. anyone know where we could start (besides calling service)? thanks.

[pwilson101]

Oh, it's a VF5, (year 2001)

[Geof]

Did the X axis alarm when you used Power Up Restart to home the axes?
Did the X axis move at all? If yes in what direction?
Did the Y and Z axes move okay?
Did you try jogging the X axis before you tried to home it?

[BigNizzy]

The Haas control is great but you really get what you pay for as per the machines construction. I have 8 Haas machines ranging from VF3 to Vf10 (1998 machines) and they have managed to do every job I have ever thrown at them. (I am an oil and gas sub contractor so plenty of exotic materials) we have over loaded the tables and they still work fine we even managed a job with a 0.0005" positional tolerance on one last month.

We also have some mazak E500 and an a new E650 as well as 2 1060 and an 1850 and I don't rate them. Mazatrol has fallen behind over the years and it's just not as flexible as G-codes. I didn't want to sound pro haas and down on mazak but that is how it has turned out so in an attempt to even things up I have an Ajax bedmill thats 24 years old running a heindenhain controller thats plunging out 63 dia 10mm ap & 250 deep - fantatstic.

Picking a machine you have to weigh everything it does up. they all have pro's and cons my guess is HAAS gives your mate more pro's than cons for the £ or $ as your a merkin

[Machineit]

lol good lord machineit, why be so defensive? apparently you are in love with haas machines, which would indicate they are fine machines. I just wanted to know the pluses and minuses cuz I'm curious like that. no hidden agenda to get my friend to change machines. but yes, somewhere I heard they were "cheap" machines, so I was just curious. maybe this is the wrong place to ask for an opinion like that on haas machines.

thanks eaglemike for the input. I was curious if there were some major flaws or anything that stood out on the plus-side. sounds like the control is a plus.

seemed easy enough (I just came back from the shop) - but we couldn't get past the x servo alarm. when we went to home it, the x-axis load kept climbing and when it hit 236% it kicked out an alarm "X SERVO ERROR T". also got "X AXIS SERVO F". Sometimes had a "DISABLED AXIS" alarm when I tried to jog it in the x-axis. anyone know where we could start (besides calling service)? thanks.

First: defensive? yes, somewhat, but not because I'm a Haas lover, just that I don't want to see another machine bashing thread started. I have seen too many over the years. If you do not ask specific questions that have definite answers then it invites those who know nothing and just like to foment trouble to post things just to agitate.

Second: Did you use proper start-up precedence. Clear any alarms an then hit "Power Up Restart?" If you did that, what exactly happened? The first thing that should happen is that the spindle will make a gear change, if it has a gear box. Mine will go from say High to Low and then back to High. After that the Z axis will home itself, did it do that? After that X and Y home at the same time. Is that when the alarm happened?

Best to let us know all of the procedures used, and exactly what happened when the alarms happened.

If you go into "Setng Graph" (setting graphics) you can change setting 53 from "off" to "on" and this will allow you to jog an axis without homing it. You might want to do this for testing purposes, but use a lot of caution as you can damage the machine by running into a hard stop.

While you are in "Setng Graph," you might want to make sure that setting 15 is set to "H & T Code Agreement" set to "ON." This will save some possible crashes for now, and is generally best to leave it there.

So, post specifics for us to help you with. Who hooked up the machine and did they measure the voltage properly and hook to the right taps?

Good luck---Mike

[WallyL7]

Obviously your friend has made his decision and is moving forward. Are you now going to try and change his mind and make him sell his three machine and buy others!

Please just go to work and enjoy the machines. Get the manual and read. Enjoy the ease of the control.

I'll X2 on this. Why compare them with Mazak for crying out loud (which imo you just can't really do - mazak's pretty much kill them...no, take that back. They DO kill them.). You didn't buy them, just learn to make money with them.

You can't compare them to Fanuc controls either...however, in this case they(haas) kill the competition. Haas controls are what helped make them as competitive as they are today. Very easy to manipulate. Very easy to learn.

You don't know why he is sticking with Haas? My only thought here is "who wrote the checks"

The comment about Mazatrol falling behind is somewhat valid...until you throw in VQC against it. Mazatrol is wicked powerful on lathes and remains very valuable. VQC is an actual joke on anything but the garage one-off type stuff.


They are a light duty machine but are (like mentioned) very capable of getting jobs done.

[underthetire]

Since Mazak is the Haas in the Japanese market, i don't see why you wouldn't compare.

[txcncman]

I have never found anything "wrong" about one brand of machine over another. All machines have limitations and I have just learned to work within those limitations to get the job done. Most companies buy the minimum amount of machine that just barely meets the requirements for the least price possible.

[Machineit]

Well, we will see what happens. We are giving answers and he is not responding. Possibly starting to smell, sniff sniff!

We are here to help and deal with issues in order to help fellow CNC guy. We are not here to bash one machine or another.

Mike