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IndustryArena Forum > MetalWorking Machines > HURCO > Scary VM10U problems
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  1. #1
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    Jun 2006
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    Scary VM10U problems

    I bought a VM10U in 2016. At that point I wasn't ready to program or run it. In 2017 we moved to another facility and in 2018 we finally settup and began to operate the machine. In the process we paid about$40K in upgrades to Hurco direct. Now a 80's Ford Mercury looking VM10U cost about $135,000.

    We ran about 400 hours on the machine, bringing hours to about 700. A C axis encoder was destroyed by coolant because a Hurco engineer ****ed up and had a copper sealing washer made too thin. That cost us $4750. Then we had some issues with the brakes allowing table rotation in light finishing cuts and alarming the machine out and ceasing production. Hurco tech support takes messages and calls back 5-10 hours later or never if they don't have knowledge on the issue. Our first call back offered no advise. Our second attempt for support is out for response. Meanwhile American jobs hang on the service of an American company selling Taiwanese machines with Italian rotaries, and possessing apparently zero technical support.

    Knowing this, I would buy a Doosan, Mazak, or other 5 axis machine over a Hurco. Hurco doesn't care if you go broke. They build a ****ty machine that doesn't work 100% of the time like a fanuc machine and it's stressful to own a hurco.

  2. #2
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    Jun 2006
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    424

    Re: Scary VM10U problems

    I spent 100% of today trying to get tech support on the Hurco. I got zero feedback.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
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    188

    Re: Scary VM10U problems

    Green0 Sorry to hear about your problems.
    Clamping issue with the C axis during light cuts or both A and C. Is the error a clamp error or out of position error? We had one that did it with the C axis The tech found that the bad brake seals allowed air to pressurize the cavity of the rotary keeping the brake from working..
    there is no physical brake confirmation is is just a pressure switch. if the cavity is pressurized you can check by pulling out the oil fill plug on the a axis or turning the C up and pulling out the oil inspection/fill plug on the side. be careful it that is the issue it may blow the cap off when you are pulling it out.
    best way to contact Hurco service is email [email protected] with machine serial number. description of the problem and a naverror file If you can get it.

  4. #4
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    Feb 2009
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    6028

    Re: Scary VM10U problems

    Quote Originally Posted by Green0 View Post
    I bought a VM10U in 2016. At that point I wasn't ready to program or run it. In 2017 we moved to another facility and in 2018 we finally settup and began to operate the machine. In the process we paid about$40K in upgrades to Hurco direct. Now a 80's Ford Mercury looking VM10U cost about $135,000.

    We ran about 400 hours on the machine, bringing hours to about 700. A C axis encoder was destroyed by coolant because a Hurco engineer ****ed up and had a copper sealing washer made too thin. That cost us $4750. Then we had some issues with the brakes allowing table rotation in light finishing cuts and alarming the machine out and ceasing production. Hurco tech support takes messages and calls back 5-10 hours later or never if they don't have knowledge on the issue. Our first call back offered no advise. Our second attempt for support is out for response. Meanwhile American jobs hang on the service of an American company selling Taiwanese machines with Italian rotaries, and possessing apparently zero technical support.


    Knowing this, I would buy a Doosan, Mazak, or other 5 axis machine over a Hurco. Hurco doesn't care if you go broke. They build a ****ty machine that doesn't work 100% of the time like a fanuc machine and it's stressful to own a hurco.

    Like we say, Hurco is cheap on the front end, but they will get you bad on the backend. As far as service though, I find them to be responsive to emails. Can't say the same about service on some higher end machines we have.

  5. #5
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    Jun 2006
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    424

    Re: Scary VM10U problems

    Quote Originally Posted by underthetire View Post
    Like we say, Hurco is cheap on the front end, but they will get you bad on the backend. As far as service though, I find them to be responsive to emails. Can't say the same about service on some higher end machines we have.
    I always hear that from end users and I wonder how screwed the other machine brands are. I can't get ahold of Hurco in less than 5 hours to save my life. They are one of the worst customer service machines of the 5 brands we have. I see Hurco people constantly cover for them. They are like a group of abused people who can't come out of the rain.

    Also most of the time I talk to them, I'm not getting answers. It's like an incompetent lip service line where they put you in que for 5+ hours to suggest you are unimportant to them, less important than the people who won't be able to answer your questions anyway.

  6. #6
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    Re: Scary VM10U problems

    Quote Originally Posted by powerr View Post
    Green0 Sorry to hear about your problems.
    Clamping issue with the C axis during light cuts or both A and C. Is the error a clamp error or out of position error? We had one that did it with the C axis The tech found that the bad brake seals allowed air to pressurize the cavity of the rotary keeping the brake from working..
    there is no physical brake confirmation is is just a pressure switch. if the cavity is pressurized you can check by pulling out the oil fill plug on the a axis or turning the C up and pulling out the oil inspection/fill plug on the side. be careful it that is the issue it may blow the cap off when you are pulling it out.
    best way to contact Hurco service is email [email protected] with machine serial number. description of the problem and a naverror file If you can get it.
    It's out of position, meaning the brake didn't hold the position. Also we have been begging and pleading for technical support on whether the air pressure can be increased to the brake and no one knows anything. They use an Italian rotary and they claim to own that company but the proof in knowing the product isn't there. I feel like they obviously don't have any knowledge of their product. The problem is pretty severe in impact. If the table moves, the machine won't continue to operate.

  7. #7
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    Jun 2006
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    424

    Re: Scary VM10U problems

    I was trying to work this in the Hurco users group on facebook but I got kicked out of that group. The users kept covering for Hurco and no one could answer my question. I wanted to be a Hurco fan but the machine is not the quality of Mazak, Doosan, or Yama Seiki machines at our shop. It keeps having small issues that cost a lot of money and there is never anyone around to provide technical support. The control is our least favorite control in the shop. Little quirks like setting the restart point, and not having Z axis wear compensation, and also not giving users access to parameters are undesirable.

    Hurco seems to have a policy that everyone goes to voicemail. That's a very poor quality for customer service on a CNC machine.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
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    188

    Re: Scary VM10U problems

    Green0
    Are you service by a dealer or by Hurco?

    What state are you in?

    What version of winmax does your machine have on it. If your not for sure hit the input button on the console . it should tell you in the main screen. machine should have tool wear compensation on it.

    Is the error out of position C axis? Or out of position A axis? when it Faults. It should tell you what axis the fault is on.
    increasing the air pressure wont do much for you. Like said before. if it is the A axis pull the fill plug see if air rushes out. if it is the C axis flip it 90 degrees and pull the oil window out see if air rushes out..

    had this happen on a VM10u air built up in the cavity behind the brake and would not let it clamp. but the machine thought it was clamped because it uses pressure switch to verify it is clamped. so it would move during a cut.
    while removing the brake it started using out against the screws. thinking nothing of it kept going, then the brake blew out of the back of the rotary missed my head by inches and scared the crap out of me. all in all a fun day. replaced the seals in the brake all was well again.

    Not sure why you are having issues getting service feed back, Hurco was always pretty good about getting back to people.

  9. #9
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    Jun 2006
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    424

    Re: Scary VM10U problems

    Do you have a PDF or something on brake servicing? Some builders have supporting information and that can be really helpful. What is the seal set cost to do the rebuild? I don't think we're leaking air, so maybe we have a weak spring on the brake?

    The machine is out of position C axis during the fault. I don't have a dealer, I'm serviced by Hurco direct. They are good, I like my service technician, and he is competent. His last visit cost about $1200 and he was here for about 2.5 hours, so it is the most expensive service we have. The part we needed for that repair was a C encoder damaged by coolant dripping through a brass seal that Hurco didn't make thick enough to seal the table through hole for air accessories. The part from Fagor automation was $3400. It was a little ****ty to know that Hurco's design flaw on the thickness of the brass washer necessitated all of that cost. This machine had 340 cut hours when we bought it but was 2011 and out of warranty. We have experienced a few blue screen issues and someone just said that may be the hard drive, and we paid $1500 to upgrade that to a solid state drive when this machine was installed. I remember that being like a 40GB SSD that had a $60 shelf cost at the time. So maybe now my SSD is a problem?

    This brake issue started happening a week after that visit. I only know of a few Hurco shops. I get the impression that the machines leave people barely able to make rate. One of the guys we hired was from a shop running a job lights out at night with a long run time and saying the machine might be losing them money on that job. He talked about tripping breakers, and system hangs, and other odd issues they worked with the Hurco machines.

    So far it's the most unreliable machine in the shop. The most expensive per unit of time.

  10. #10
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    Dec 2013
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    5717

    Re: Scary VM10U problems

    If a machine was costing me money rather than making me money, I guess I would either upgrade the controller and make mechanical mods needed or drag it out of the shop and replace it with a machine that would make money.
    Jim Dawson
    Sandy, Oregon, USA

  11. #11
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    Re: Scary VM10U problems

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Dawson View Post
    If a machine was costing me money rather than making me money, I guess I would either upgrade the controller and make mechanical mods needed or drag it out of the shop and replace it with a machine that would make money.
    Yeah that's a pretty ****ty situation when you are $135,000 into a machine. It definitely catches you in a bad place. I bet resale value is $95K right now. You want to see an end of the money pit issues, or you have to take a loss and resell. It doesn't help that the machine has had about 8 or 9 little problems where tech support could really save the day and you get the Hurco message machine and a call back in 3-24 hours so a guy is sitting on the clock under-employed at a business where we don't want to screw with that guy and send him home, and that even becomes part of the cost of owning a Hurco. One day it was tool change recovery. The onboard software didn't work, and we just tried random stuff for 3 hours until we figured it out. That was up to 3 people trying to get the machine back online after a low air pressure incident alarmed it out. probably about $100 an hour before factoring the lost time.

    Yesterday I had a Yama Seiki Y axis motor alarm code in Fanuc, we called Yama Seiki and were able to trouble shoot that to a disconnected solder joint at a plug in about 2 hours after immediately getting someone on the phone in a 5 minute conversation, and were able to have the machine back up in 3 hours. That machine has about 5 times as many hours as the hurco and is a workhorse compared. A major problem resolved in the same time as a Hurco tool change recovery. The Hurco approach to customer service is just flawed, and should be changed. The other day I was on the Hurco user group with actual Hurco customer service people telling me they were unoccupied and to call, and I was still getting the message machine and being put into a lengthy que. Their own people don't understand their system doesn't work.

  12. #12
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    Feb 2006
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    171

    Re: Scary VM10U problems

    Green0.

    I don't have an answer for your issue, because I don't know the machine- am not a Hurco Tech Rep -nor a active follower of this thread.
    My observation is that you are not responsive to suggestions or requests for info and that makes solving any problem intolerable.
    As a field service engineer during my career, I worked with many customers in solving problems with their equipment.
    You my friend make this a most difficult problem and maybe that is why you are being ignored.?
    Yes, you spent a lot of money and the machine is not working as expected...we get that..
    If it is that important, and you do not use a local dealer, how about hoping on a plane and going to Indianapolis and doing a face to face ?
    What I don't understand is buying a machine without any documentation ? I think that may have been the first failure.

    Anyway, My best wishes to get it sorted out. I fully understand lost production..can never be replaced
    Rich

  13. #13
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    Jun 2006
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    424

    Re: Scary VM10U problems

    Quote Originally Posted by Rich Carlstedt View Post
    Green0.

    I don't have an answer for your issue, because I don't know the machine- am not a Hurco Tech Rep -nor a active follower of this thread.
    My observation is that you are not responsive to suggestions or requests for info and that makes solving any problem intolerable.
    As a field service engineer during my career, I worked with many customers in solving problems with their equipment.
    You my friend make this a most difficult problem and maybe that is why you are being ignored.?
    Yes, you spent a lot of money and the machine is not working as expected...we get that..
    If it is that important, and you do not use a local dealer, how about hoping on a plane and going to Indianapolis and doing a face to face ?
    What I don't understand is buying a machine without any documentation ? I think that may have been the first failure.

    Anyway, My best wishes to get it sorted out. I fully understand lost production..can never be replaced
    Rich
    I was seeking information from Hurco on increasing the air pressure. It turns out that probably a spring locks the axis, and air unlocks it.

    That brought me to a second thought process, clean and possibly service the brake. So I looked for documentation on that. So far nothing has been available.

    I'm pretty sure the brake is weak - it's either a worn spring or assembly needing to be cleaned, or just a bad design. Bad design wouldn't surprise me given my other observations of the Hurco machine.

    The really stupid part of this whole situation is that good customer support can turn used machine owners into new machine customers. Also people who resell used machines, keep new machine sales from happening.

    In my experience when a company does poorly with understanding the above concept, one of their competitors will get it, and will do better.

  14. #14
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    Jun 2008
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    1103

    Re: Scary VM10U problems

    The brakes on the rotary axes are actuated with air and released with a spring called an ‘anti-rotation ring’. Strip-down is simple and reasonably easy. Seal kits are available.

  15. #15
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    Re: Scary VM10U problems

    I don’t know of any brass rings that seal the air accessory tube. There is normally a cap sealed over the threaded part down in the table.

  16. #16
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    Re: Scary VM10U problems

    Quote Originally Posted by bloke View Post
    The brakes on the rotary axes are actuated with air and released with a spring called an ‘anti-rotation ring’. Strip-down is simple and reasonably easy. Seal kits are available.
    That would imply that they would increase clamping force with an increase in air pressure, leading me back to the original question of how high were they tested to? Where do the seals blow out? I have 125PSI shop air and they are factory regulated to 6 bar 87PSI, and I asked and Hurco said they under-rated them, but didn't say how much, so I'm in the dark as to how far a safe increase would be. I would like the table to actually remain stationary through a light finishing cut. Right now a light finishing cut has demonstrated less than total reliability. It would be great to see a machine builder PDF on the servicing and costs on the seal kit. We're not having a sealing problem but that would help us to just take the risk and go where Hurco has not been and attempt to understand the limitations of their apparently relatively untested system.

  17. #17
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    Re: Scary VM10U problems

    The clamping is performed by the air pushing a tapered cylinder into a similarly shaped recess in a split brake ring. This ring opens out very slightly to grip inside the housing. It is returned to its original position with the anti-rotation ring.
    The braking force exerted is more than enough to keep the axis still.

  18. #18
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    Re: Scary VM10U problems

    Quote Originally Posted by bloke View Post
    I don’t know of any brass rings that seal the air accessory tube. There is normally a cap sealed over the threaded part down in the table.
    On my machine there was a brass ring there, the technician pulled it and showed it to me and said see, there is no witness so there was no contact between the parts, and we need to get more brass washers until we see witness to prove the seal occurred. He mentioned someone at Hurco had miss-specd a part or improperly designed the part, and this problem happened to a few machines around the time mine was made. So in other words Hurco made a defective machine assembly and I paid for the damage caused by it to the tune of $4600 between the part and the visit, + down time- payroll, lost production etc. So probably in the vicinity of a $5600 cost of that brass washer not sealing the accessory tube and allowing the encoder to be destroyed by a few drops of coolant. It would be cool if Fagor had designed an encoder that could tolerate a few drops of coolant. We're talking a nearly dry cavity here, maybe 4-6 drops of coolant ever got in there. When you flexed the shaft of the encoder against the seal, you could just barely see a witness of coolant as the shaft seperated from the seal and that was the only liquid in the trunion. A few drops.

  19. #19
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    Re: Scary VM10U problems

    You do have a Machine Shop...fix it. You want something done right ...do it yourself.

  20. #20
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    Re: Scary VM10U problems

    Quote Originally Posted by machinehop5 View Post
    You do have a Machine Shop...fix it. You want something done right ...do it yourself.
    Can you fix a broken encoder? Fagor makes them and can't fix them according to them. They said if there is coolant incursion, they can't do anything to fix the encoder. They have a $300 fee to send one back, but warn you, if any liquid is detected, the $300 is lost and they just tell you to buy a new encoder.

    I would have been happy to fix the brass seal, at no point was I ever informed I had a faulty machine effected by a recall or service announcement.

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