Cnc help

[huntinco]

Feedback please.
I have the following Products thus far Hass 2013 TL1 & TM2P, Surfcam, spaceclaim and I'm very happy with them so far but I'm in the market for another mill, lathe and Laser engraver & I have decided to bite off the mill first.
After shopping hard for a few months I'm considering the following. Hass VF3SSYT, VF4SS, VF5SS, Doosan 650II, Okuma M560-V OR Morri DuraVertical 5100.
Right now I'm leaning towards the Hass because of price & i already have a small 4th axis but the Doosan dealer has a deal that's almost to hard to pass up however the thoughts of learning a new control is not what i really want to do! I also do not plan on purchasing another mill for quite some time so i want to get it right the first time. HELP!

 

[Joe Woosman]

A few months ago I bought a new VF2SSYT with a 15K spindle and the new HRC210 high speed rotary. I really love it. They are VERY good machines. I also have a VF2 and VF3 I've had for 19 years and they are still producing precision parts. The new machines are far improved from the old ones so you can expect a good long useful life. I also highly recommend the Renishaw probing package they offer. If I were buying one for gunsmithing work I would lean towards the VF3 or VF4. With the rotary and tailstock mounted on the VF2 there is only about 20 inches of good useable X travel left. The VF3 and VF4 share the same machine base so the price difference isn't huge. The VF5 is a much bigger machine. I haven't found the Y travel to be very limiting on the VF3 for what I do. I don't make many parts larger than will fit in the 20 inches of Y travel.

I can't comment on Doosan or the others since I've had such success with the Haas. A few times I've strayed and bought into more expensive and "higher quality" machines of the Fanuc control variety. I keep running back to Haas though. The user friendliness of the control and the cost of maintenance is hard to put into perspective until you've traveled the road. Ie. a Fanuc servo amp for a Kitamura was upwards of $5K where a similar servo amp on a Haas is less than $1500. A replacement spindle on a Kitamura I had was $20K plus factory service calls plus no guarantee of quick availability. A similar Haas spindle is around $4K, I can have one in a day and change it out myself in a few hours...... And get this - the Haas spindle actually worked better!