Access to Haas extended memory

[Vern Smith]

Maxi,

http://onecnc.net/

[HuFlungDung]

Vern,
I'm glad you did not take any offence, as none was intended, and I was just discussing this as a theoretical and general case.

I guess maybe we all may experience some sort of buyer's remorse. In our eagerness to 'get going' we all too often enter hastily into agreements. This includes quoting low to get work when times are lean, but we may afterwards be kicking ourselves for cutting our own throats.

In the same way, when we buy a Haas, we ask what it comes with, we get told, and we take it or leave it. The fact that the capability lies within the machine to do more than we originally agreed to, can grate anyone who has a tendency to......enjoy free stuff But that's the cost of keeping one's word.

I dare say its gonna cost us in time, possible damage to the machine, if we go ahead and try to enable features on our own, and I don't think we want contact with the underworld that supplies 'cracks and hacks'. That is a shady bunch that we could literally do without. I think hackers, crackers and thieves imagine themselves to be great liberators, and that the rest of us are suckers to pay what we pay for stuff.

However, as I saw put so well in one place: "right actions have good consequences, and wrong actions have bad consequences", its a natural law.

[Vern Smith]

Well put Hu, no buyers remorse here, hell I ordered a Renishaw probing system from them last month, I'm a true believer. I soon figured out that I was spending 4 hours setting up the machine for every hour it ran.

[serviceman]

just want to clear up some things. the older machines have sockets for standard off the shelf chips, you can plug them in and not type in any passwords or hack anything. This would be similar to buying memory for any computer from any vendor instead of going to the oem. the newer machines have surface mount technology and can also be modified without password use, although a bit more difficult. the newest machines since haas was forced to go to a new processor, the cold fire have significant memory increase and the memory is already on the board and is password protected. the older haas machines also did not need passwords for 4th and 5th axis all you had to do was find an amp a cable and a 4th axis transformer and you had 4th or fifth axis. haas picked up on the fact that people were doing this without paying the currently around $5000.00 they charge for 4th and fifth, back in the day 5th axis was $10,000.00 and they put a stop to it by putting a password on the parameters. if all you need is hardware to upgrade your machine i do not see how there is any intellectual property involved otherwise they should protect it like microsoft or anyone else, if they failed to do so and people find out that hey all i have to do is this and my machine will be better faster stronger then more power to them. if the oem password protects it then they got smarter and should get paid. i do not advocate people using hacks to break passwords although i am sure the haas passwords are pretty simple. There are a lot of engineering hours at stake when they build options on machines and haas should get their due like anyone else if they are smart enough to protect their investments. extended memory on a haas is not that much money $1000.00 plus installation i've changed processors in less than an hour.
there are also people who sell processors on ebay and other sites for less than the option costs if you are willing to gamble you can try to buy one of these processors and find someone who will load the software.

[Vern Smith]

I had a lawyer with some expertise in intellectual property rights attention the other day and ask him about the crux of this thread: namely, everybody gets the extended memory free, so why should anyone have to pay to get access to it.

His reply mirrored some of the points brought up by several previous respondents to the thread. The whole legal approach to intellectual property, particularly in the software area, has seen a revolutionary change in the last decade.

The bottom line was today's courts will usually take the position that while the invoice said I was buying additional memory the court would support the contention that I was actually buying software access to the physical memory everybody else got. Whether someone could bring a successful civil suite for false representation is another interesting issue.

Knowing Haas was sending the additional physical memory with all it machines one could elect not to pay Haas for the additional memory upgrade and replace the Haas control system software with a system from a third party that had the capabilities to utilize the hidden memory. For anyone short of the USA government this would be a ridiculous financial proposition so the only viable alternative is to pay Haas and smile about it.

So it looks like (until the next Supreme Court case on intellectual property is handed down) you can buy a car and not have control of the trunk opener.

Ain't this a fun discussion.

[rubyfocus]

Fooey.... All of this postulation and conjecture has made me ill. If these machines were being purchased by as large of a population as automobiles are, this questionable practice of separating options from owners with ridiculously-priced passwords could not possibly survive. People would simply not put up with it, and you'd see hacks and cracks everywhere you go. Demanding a thousand bucks for a megabyte of memory that's already in the machine or seven hundred bucks for a 3.5" floppy drive PLUS whatever a service call costs is GREEDY. Over-charging customers only exists where and when people can get away with it, and for some reason, most of us would rather just be Haas's ***** until the end of time rather than not stand for it. I don't think that Gene Haas got his tit in a ringer with the IRS from being an honest businessman. And then of course there's his ridiculous vendetta with Fadal. It doesn't take much to get the idea that there's something not quite right with Mr. Haas. That said, I think I'm going to try to figure out how to hack my machine and enable whatever it's capable of doing. Just for fun. Shouldn't be too tricky. After all, the operating system in these machines is no more complicated than Windows 2/DOS 6. Then, as I figure it out, I'll post the solutions in this forum FOR FREE. That way, those of us who don't want to be victims of a corporation led by a money-grubbing thief can fully optimize the machines we paid for. Nobody gets hurt except the crooks.

[timf]

vern,
you make some interesting points, bottom line becomes right and wrong just like my mom taught me.
if you didn't pay for it, it isn't yours (hacking it would be stealing)

maxine,
that is just WRONG.
no way they should be able to limit you to 2 computers that is an outrage.
you need to keep complaining all the way to the top.
how can they expect any computer to last the life of the machine tool or the company.
everyone of the customers will eventually get SCREWED by this rule.
if that is the way they do business they need to be exposed for the scams they are.
you didn't mention the name of the software but if that happen to me i would take out an add in the paper/ trade mag or anywhere i could get the word out about the way this company does business.

when you buy the software you are buyiong the right to the use of it not the right to install it, so it should not matter how many times i install it or on how many computers only that i actively am using only 2 copies.
the key dongle type license should be the answer to this issue that way it only works with the usb key no matter what computer.

we used to have smartcam and when a computer would die we would just reload it and send for the new key, that would disable the old key, the computer id and the key had to match for it to run.

[maxine]

So I got the code to unlock my extended memory today from my HFO. But all I got was the code in an email. No instructions and the HFO is closed for the weekend now. So what do I do with it? I am not sure where/how to enter it and I can't seem to find instructions in the manual. I know I must just be overlooking it somewhere. Does anyone happen to know were I should look? Maxi

[Geof]

I think the procedure is to go to the parameter that unlocks it; highlight this parameter bit with the cursor, and then type in the code and press write.

You need to turn off the the setting 7 for the parameter lock and push estop.

[maxine]

Thank you sir! I will head over to my shop and give that a try right after supper. Maxi

[maxine]

That worked, thanks!