Home CNC machine

[Munch]

Anyone have one? I thought there was someone who was buying one, can't seem to locate the thread...

So if you have a home CNC machine, post up some detail please

[mitt]

This is the one I get to play with at work, and if I had the room in a garage, I would have one like it at home:





mitt

[NAKID]

This is the one I get to play with at work, and if I had the room in a garage, I would have one like it at home:





mitt

Pic don't work. Even copy and pasted...

[mitt]

Pic don't work. Even copy and pasted...

hmm - it is a pdf converted to images using google document viewer

how bout this

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxtaXR0ZWxzdGFkdGN8Z3g6MTIyYzhkNTUwMTdjNGJiNQ

[NAKID]

Yup, that works. Nice!

[Monsterlover]

My condolences that it's a Haas.

[mitt]

My condolences that it's a Haas.

what else can you buy like that for 25k and made in US?

mitt

[sno_duc]

My condolences that it's a Haas.

Having run or repaired a number of different CNCs.

I like Haas.

All the limit switches are the same, same mounting holes, same plug on the end of the cable, same plug pin out, the only differance is cable length. So I used to carry 1 limit switch with the longest cable in my tool box. In a pinch it would work anywhere.

The Operator pendant is the same, once you learn one Haas you've learned them all. And unlike Fadal you don't have to memorize a bunch of two letter codes.

The transmmision is robust, I only every remember changing one.

Most of the Haas's I dealt with were at CoorsTek, diamond tooling in ceramic parts, 7k to 10k spindle speeds all day long, the swarf is basicly lapping compond, about the worst conditions you can put a CNC in. In fact if you look in most machine tool owners manuals, the warranty is voided if used to machine ceramics. Haas's actually held up well.

[mitt]

Yea, we have 5 haas centers at work between 2 and 15 years old, from the little one I showed to VF5s.  They seem to hold up pretty well.  The oldest one just had a transmission go out a couple weeks ago, but that is after 15 years of everyday use. It only took 1 guy about 7 hours to replace the transmission and motor assembly - it was pretty cool to watch.

mitt

[Monsterlover]

what else can you buy like that for 25k and made in US?

mitt

I understand the attractiveness based on the price point.

For the money, it's hard to beat.

Also, they're not made in the US, just assembled here.

Im just biased against the brand.

I've programmed-operated-setup-fixed mills and lathes over the years and out of all the machines I've worked with the Haas was the one that always broke.

Now that Im in distribution, I have a lot of customers that use Haas machines, as well as other brands.  Haas are still what breaks the most.

I have a good customer with 2 EC300 horizontals.  Both machines are fairly new, and were bought new.  Both have 12,000 rpm spindles, through spindle coolant and "high pressure" coolant (that means like 300 psi)

One machine limits the spindle to 10,000 rpm when the TSC is on.  The other is limited to *7,000* rpm!  Seems that the rotary coupling Haas used they feel only is ok up to those rpms.  That right there is costing a ton of money because we can't run the tools to their potential.

One of these mills, at random, changes the work shift z-.03 and scraps a whole tombstone of parts.  Haas service has been there like 10 times and replaced everything.  They don't know what to do about it.

As it turns out, one of the facemills they had in there was designated as a "heavy tool" and that was the cause.  Now they have to run a probe cycle to check and see if the work shift is within +/-.005 before it let's the cycle go.

Again, more time and cost.  They have a number of cumulative dollars lost due to the machine being down/scrapping parts etc and it's a big one.

I have a sneaking feeling that some of these machines are made well, and others not so much.

And, just so I'm not 100% bagging on them, there are things I do like about them.

I will say that I like the control.  Easy to edit programs and easy to write quickie programs right at the control.  Also, as sno_duc mentioned, one Haas is the same as the rest.  If you can program/setup/operate one, you can do it on all of them.

I also like the programmable coolant nozzle.  That's a cool thing that I haven't seen on any other machine yet.

[sno_duc]

One of these mills, at random, changes the work shift z-.03 and scraps a whole tombstone of parts.  Haas service has been there like 10 times and replaced everything.  They don't know what to do about it.

As it turns out, one of the facemills they had in there was designated as a "heavy tool" and that was the cause.  Now they have to run a probe cycle to check and see if the work shift is within +/-.005 before it let's the cycle go.

Seen that before.

Another one to store for future reference. We had one VF 3 that acted weird. Turn out to be electrical noise on the ground, drilled a hole in the concrete, drove a 8' ground rod, added the ground rod to the grounding circuit, and the mystery problems went away.

[Monsterlover]

Interesting.

ground gremlins abound

[CapnCrunch]

build your own.

http://www.instructables.com/id/20-CNC-Machine/?images#images

[Popeye the Sailor]

I've programmed-operated-setup-fixed mills and lathes over the years and out of all the machines I've worked on the Haas was the one that always broke.

I see a trend 

[Monsterlover]

I knew that would come up sooner or later.

I have broken a few machines, yes.

These Haas machines in question failed on their own with no help from me.