pic: 1429 Gets a new toy
 

Re: pic: 1429 Gets a new toy
 

That is sooo awesome. I had a few quick questions btw:

-Did you buy it at full price
-If not, how much did you buy it for.

The only reason I'm asking is because we have one CNC and we are going to buy another one very soon.

Re: pic: 1429 Gets a new toy
 

That's a nice new toy :)

Have fun playing with it. I hope you guys have a better experience with Haas than we have.

Re: pic: 1429 Gets a new toy
 

I think the topic for this thread should be "pic: a great addition".

Re: pic: 1429 Gets a new toy
 

oh WOW
that's SUPER SWEEEEEET!
Our team is trying to get enough money to buy that. It would make fabrication so much easier. Hahah.
But even if our team did get it, our classroom is so small. We need a shop made esp. for robotics.

But thats just in my dreams.!

Re: pic: 1429 Gets a new toy
 

On 190, we have a TM-1 that we use for most of our CNC work. It's just a little too short to cut long chassis rails, but if you program it right, it's really easy to do it in two setups.

Did you get any of the spiffy options like the tool probe or part probe?

Re: pic: 1429 Gets a new toy
 

How much of a beating did your wallet take with that sexi Haas? :cool:

Imma get me one 'o those

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Just don't crash it a new spindle is pretty big $$$$

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They're $35k base.

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We're saving up to get a tube of Dremel cutoff disks and three new hacksaw blades...

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You do remember your good 'ol friends at 1477, right? Heh. Nice piece of machinery.

With some luck, I'll have a job at the university machine shop and be working with three of these machines.

Re: pic: 1429 Gets a new toy
 

Our school shop has 2 Haas mills and 2 Haas Lathes, most of the time during the build season that we have all four running at the same time! You will find these very useful!!!

Re: pic: 1429 Gets a new toy
 

Awesome. The workspace we use is attached to a shop where they are inventing/building this diesel engine so they have their own. The owner lets us use the space and if we leave some plans on the table with a note the night before he'll mill it for us. We are so lucky to have him as an awesome sponsor.

Re: pic: 1429 Gets a new toy
 

In response... We have had various Haas equipment.... Haas VF-E [VF-1] vertical mill, TL-1 and SL-20 CNC lathes... for some 8 years in our shop. As with any machine, there will always be mechanical/electronic issues, and mileage will vary depending on operations and operator..... but our local Haas Factory Outlet/Dealer has always been there for us in time of need. They are quick to respond to problems [phone call / service call] and have always treated us fairly. Compared to other brands in our shop, [IMHO] the Haas equipment has been by far the more reliable and durable and productive CNC machinery.

As for pricing... Hope you didn't pay full price... Haas has been offering 15-30% off their standard pricing to try to reduce their factory inventory. Check their website. We just received delivery on a new VF-2 vertical mill... can't tell you what we paid for it [NDA]... but it definitely was not full price... maybe because the factory is just north of here??.. and again they went well beyond the call of duty getting us up and running and educated with the new mill's features and operation. Your local dealer does offer classes on both programing and operation, and there are online manuals available for download on the HaasCNC site. Local community colleges are also good sources of training and information, as are local machine shops.

I don't think you will regret your new toy... just treat it with respect, get properly trained on it, use good tooling, do the suggested mantainence, and above all...

keep "challenged" programers and operators away from it.....

Re: pic: 1429 Gets a new toy
 

We just ended up with a lemon. We got a VF-1 in May of 2007, and since we got it, it's had multiple oil leaks, a spindle replacement, three gearbox replacements, a bad display board, and some other minor problems. Our machine has less than 400 cutting hours on it and cuts 99.99% aluminum.

I've used a lot of Haas equipment, both at WPI, and at a local community college and never had any problems before. Also know of a lot of people making a lot of money with Haas machines that run 15 years and never need more attention than preventative maintenance. Unfortunately that has not been our experience and if/when we purchase any additional CNC machinery, it will definitely not be a Haas.

Re: pic: 1429 Gets a new toy
 

Dang..... I wish we could get one.... i guess that we shouldnt be complaining cause we have a mentor (my dad) who has 3. He just needs to find time to show me how to program g-code

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Thanks for all the comments. I'll try to answer some of the questions.

This was something that we had begged and pleaded for over the past few years. Our school district had some extra money this year and bought us one. We did not even know that we were getting it until we got a phone call from the shipping company saying that it was arriving the next week. SURPRISE!!! It will also be used in our Project Lead the Way classes.

According to the purchase order, the machine was a little less than $31,000, and with shipping, simulation module, and training came to almost $38,000.

Don't scare us like that...:)
So far, our vendor has been great to work with.

Share, share... that program would be really great!

Unfortunately, there was no options like those that came with it. It didn't include any machine tools either. We are working with one of our sponsors to supply those.

Of course we do! Our plan is to get proficient with this and then offer milling services to all teams in the Houston area.

Yea, yea, yea...
I've seen what your guys can do with simple tools. You win enough awards, even without a big fancy machine.

Paul

Re: pic: 1429 Gets a new toy
 

It obviously depends on your part, but what you can do is make two programs. The first program does say half of the part, and in one of your lightening holes, instead of pocketing the whole thing out, simply cut out a hole (say 0.75-1"). You would then move the part, probe off of that hole, then run the second program with your new zero. Since you don't have a part probe, this will make things difficult. You could try to use a dial indicator.

Re: pic: 1429 Gets a new toy
 

We do the same thing as 190. Our machine only has 20" of X travel, so when we cut our frame rails we cut the left-most bearing housing pocket, the center bearing housing pocket, and all the gearbox mounting/access holes. We then slide the part all the way to the left, so that everything to the right of the center bearing housing pocket is inside the x-travel envelope. We probe off of the bore (since we have the part probe), but if you were to make this same part, you know the distance to offset your tool from the top face of the 1x2 to the center of the bearing bore and you can go to that distance, then just use an edge finger to find the left or right side of the bore. You can then offset the correct amount to find the center. This becomes even easier if you have a square/rectangular feature you want to locate off of.

Haas has a lot of good documentation here. I would suggest downloading and completing the Mill workbook. When I was taking CNC classes we used it and it was very beneficial to learn the formatting of various g-codes.

Will you be using a CAM program or writing G-code manually?

Best advice I can give-don't get ahead of yourself at first. You may think you've got something down pat and get over comfortable. That's when you break things (badly). Always have a second pair of eyes look over any code you intend to run for the first time, just to be sure (that, and single block with the rapid override on 5% whenever you run a program for the first time).

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

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Cutting Air may seem like a waste of time initially, but it is well worth it until you have your coding figured out. Especially any time you use a new feature. Also, if you ever have to start or stop a program and redo a set up, please be careful. Many autocoding programs will remove unnecessary lines as long as you are following the code. You can get an unexpected crash if you have to stop and move the table to get access.

Re: pic: 1429 Gets a new toy
 

The Haas is actually smart enough to not crash the machine (assuming your code doesn't crash the machine to start with) upon restarting in the middle of a program, so long as Setting 36 is ON.

With that setting on, it will automatically look through the program, find the appropriate tool change command, work offsets, and height offsets. It then applies those commands and goes to the correct position the tool should be at prior to the line you are restarting from.

That said, there are ways this can get you in trouble. I always make sure that if I'm restarting a program in the middle my tool is above the highest point on my part. Depending on the circumstances of what tool is in the spindle and where you are restarting the machine can either return to z0. or make a rapid move to the correct x,y position to restart the program from. It should rapid to whatever your clearance plane is above the part prior to moving in x,y, but I don't like leaving that to chance.

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We are getting Master Cam to use for our Inventor drawings.



I can't thank you enough for the offer. Don't be surprised if you get an e-mail from me in next few months.

Paul