[danpayneuk]

Morning all

Another new member here and soon to be be newbie of a cnc vmc.

I was hoping that some of you knowledgeable folk would be able to offer some advice on purchasing a 19996 or 2001 VF0-E.

I have ready alot about Haas in general, but my biggest concerns are with possible costs of repairs on this machine. Are there any major issues to look out for?

From what I understand these machines are basically a slightly more economical version of the VF2, with no gearbox and brushed motors. People seem to call them a lighter weight version.

The major percentage of work will be with Alloy of our own parts, so we aren't after a super heavy duty machine. We do however want a 4th axis, which we can get with either of these machines.

Any advice or comments would be greatly appreciated

Thanks, Dan

[Kool Parts]

I cant remember the travels but I started with a '98 VF0E. Same iron same everything. You will be fine.
These have the air counter weight system which they stopped making I am not sure of the fix for that. CRT and floppy drive sucks but there are fixes for that.
Gary

[danpayneuk]

Thans Gary, that's good to hear. Will look into the air counter weight system. Guessing there is a common fault with it?

[Kool Parts]

I bought 2 mills new that had that system. The 0E did not have problems as I remember but the VF4 had 3-4 units go bad.
To the point that I bought a small nitrogen bottle and fabbed up a braided high pressure fill line to top of the bottle when needed...once the warranty ran out of course.
They did away with that and went to the hyd system.
Gary

[ducesrwld]

for as long as I can remember I was told '97 is the cutoff year as that was when they went to brushless motors and put some more hp and higher rapids. not that an older machine can't get you off the ground but unless its a steal i'd stay a little newer than older. I own a '97 VF0 myself.

[countryguy]

There have been numerous posts recently on older machines and the (seemingly) new position of Haas to try and move away from supporting these units as-well-as making very steep price points on parts for them. (good or bad, I get it... it's going on what- 25+years now) Take heed that you may end up hitting the used market and 3rd party repair houses for board repair CNC support. They are out there. HFO's are ok, but limited on this older stuff (plus too expensive for us). I used to be able to call the Factory in CA and talk to knowledgeable people (as an ex Aerospace EET guy, I know these machines tech, and needed real support). This ability seems to have been taken away when I've tried to call recently. (anyone else get thru??). The Haas website is your best place for manuals and info. Manuals are scattered everywhere on the web. Don't just download your 1 manual by year. I found that to get a good handle on the machines, I started going backward and forwards on the manuals by year. The older manuals put in a LOT more technical info that you can still use but was parsed out (and I can guess why). The HFO's are limited in real deep technical ability on these old machines (IMO). I bought a 98 and did all my restore work, but also found out a lot of pluses and many minuses to buying an old unit. The CPU boards PCB and ROM versions versions can be a factor, the Memory on the CPU - All said to me to get the latest and greatest year I could find. Also, get at least a 1Mb, 8Mb if you get lucky. in short: get as much memory as you can IMO.

If you think you will want a Probe and tool-setter, you must get a unit w/ Macros and Rot-Scale enabled. You can put those two devices in your Haas as long as you have those 2 features and the User defined M-code relay I/O block on your I/O board. (M21-M24 on mine) ( I think I heard these might have been an option on really older units?) . You do NOT need an older renishaw probe or tool setter devices. You can use newer stuff. As an aside ; (I tend to live on a site known as Practixx Xxachinst in the Haas forum. A member there specializes in getting these units configured w/ a probe and tool setter for you. I think he is also here on CNCzone. His handle is the same on both sites. member 'Probe'. (how appropriate huh!)

For drip-mode, and getting files on larger than you can hold in mem: There are a few vendors that will sell you a RS232 dripfeed box that'll connect up to your network and allow a hefty GB SD card. So don't fret of finding a floppy on your unit. It's only a few bucks to replace that w/ a USB stick as well. But you'll want to get the drip feed going if you expect to put something large thru it.

Boy.. what else....
about 2 months in... my CPU board went bad. pre-cursors to CPU failure ( as I learned) are a display that just starts putting a bunch of characters on the command line. Like 'j' and 'g' are two most common I think I've seen posts about. There are posts on how to repair that too... Or buy a replacement CPU board for several $K. OR send to once of the repair houses. Several have good reputations. The Lowe Voltage Power supply is pretty easily repaired or replaced. A recent issue documented on a haas forum noted the PC style power supply equiv. (good clean DC power is important IMO). The supply I had was 20 years old and most of the DC caps read out as ESR failed. this was all part of the CPU board failure repair. It's $40 for clean power. Just my opinion on that.

Spindles- There are belt and gear driven units depending on age, but I don't know the years on those, or which are better for long age living.

Lubrication system: Pull the way covers, get in there, check the oil getting to the key lub points on the system. I got into all of mine. X, Y, and Z. you can buy replacement flow restriction for like $14 if I recall. Hass site sells them. They were the cheapest. The way covers can be cleaned, greased and rebuilt. The way gasket material are still purchasable on the haas parts site.

I swapped the Poly window ends and the sliding doors on mine. A local plexi and plastics vendor supplied mine very reasonably. So nice to see into clear windows! Swapping the sliding door windows was NOT that bad. I did them both in an hour or two. There are Haas docs on this. You'll cuss and swear a bit... but use WD40 to help slip it along.

That's about it. for the big things I did on mine as a newb going from a supermax VMC style mill into a used Haas as a Dad/Son garage start up type thing... Learned a ton. Now the Son just needs to make some money w/ it! ;-)

Morning all

Another new member here and soon to be be newbie of a cnc vmc.

I was hoping that some of you knowledgeable folk would be able to offer some advice on purchasing a 19996 or 2001 VF0-E.

I have ready alot about Haas in general, but my biggest concerns are with possible costs of repairs on this machine. Are there any major issues to look out for?

From what I understand these machines are basically a slightly more economical version of the VF2, with no gearbox and brushed motors. People seem to call them a lighter weight version.

The major percentage of work will be with Alloy of our own parts, so we aren't after a super heavy duty machine. We do however want a 4th axis, which we can get with either of these machines.

Any advice or comments would be greatly appreciated

Thanks, Dan

[danpayneuk]

Thanks for the further replies. Bit slow with the checking sorry. Update. Still not purchased either yet, and to add to the mix, a 1997 Bridgeport VMC 500 just come up for sale down the road. For convenience that is great. However trying to find info and people thoughts on these seems non existent. Will put a post up in the Bridgeport section just so I can hopefully make a more informative decision.