Just a followup on the Marposs:
We decided to return it after the SW started introducing unaccounted for offset errors and failed to repeat. We went from version 1 up to I think version 10 of the Marposs SW. I thought the Marposs probes were excellent quality and everything about the HW part was excellent, however there were still bugs in the integration with Haas MM.
So, Haas agreed to take it out, credit us, then we pay the extra for the Renishaw, and they will install it Monday. We shall see what the impact of that will be, for instance, the intuitive programming came as standard with the Marposs, not with the Renishaw. If it is removed it isn't such a big deal since we have the external version which is freeware. But there were other things like spindle indexing and rigid tapping that we have now written in to our canned work routines, so if we lose those and have to pay more in the process, we may or may not have spend even more.
I think that the sentencing judge in the Haas case ought to unlock the codes in all US based Haas mills and lathes as part of the sentence and in lieu of the fines. That way the US manufacturing community would get a little boost to offset the loss due to nonpayment of taxes. This would not cost Haas much and would forever endear the company to its customers. I would even petition to get the prison sentence shortened from the 2 year plea bargain if this could be done.
Bob Crowley
http://www.soundwaveresearch.com