Haas Service

Yesterday, Jerry, Ron, Jeff and I were discussing ways to increase business in 2010. One thing that came up was the possibility of aggressively going after more Haas service business. Ron pointed out that he has worked on a few lately and doesn't think that they should be that hard to learn. Our mechanics have been working on them quite awhile, but have complained about the parts situation, specifically their policy to not sell to us.

Travis has mentioned several times that he gets requests for Haas service from new, potential customers.

Obstacles that I see include the parts issue, training on the electronics and operation, and price competition. Although their Factory Store seems to have comparable pricing to us, there are any number of laid off former Haas guys roaming the country, working out of their cars, who would compete with us. Many of these guys are uninsured, so we have an advantage there.

I would like your input on this.

Happy New Year

Warren

Chris pointed out to me that the YouTube link to the recent post regarding the Komo Router at Studwell was broken. Sure enough, the video disappeared for some reason. I've uploaded it again, so here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1v5SK6Y0JQ

Please let me know if it disappears again!

Warren

Christmas Party 2009

We had a great time last week at the old Kellogg House at Cal Poly. Here are a few pictures that Karen Rockwood took. If anyone else has some, let me know. Thanks Karen!

Warren

Komo Router problem

A few months ago, Greg Rockwood and I traveled to Salt Lake City to ITT's composite facility (formerly EDO) to investigate problems with a 5 Axis Komo Router. Since it was new, the machine had centerline problems with the A axis. We were even asked to quote a retrofit for the Fanuc 150 control so the Siemens Traori pivot point compensation could be added. I discouraged that and Greg and I verified that there was a real mechanical problem. Here is a video showing what the guys at Studwell found after shipping the whole Z, A, and C assembly back here. Only one half of the head has a problem.

Persistence pays.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2rQqasUK20



Warren

The end of GEFanuc

Well, its official: The end of GEFanuc. As of last Friday, GEFanuc no longer exists. Karl and Stan both work for Fanuc America now. We don't think this will have a very large impact on us, although parts were cheaper through GEFanuc. Apparently, the Express ordering system will stay in place for retrofitters. We've not heard if they are going to change our multiplier yet. We'll see.

Verizon problems

Bill tells me that he's experienced several instances of delayed texts and voice mails recently. Has anyone else been having problems?

Dprnt Project at Circle Machine

Gilbert just finished an interesting project at Circle Machine. As some of you know, they've had SMW rotary tables and controllers on two of their Hardinge VMC's for quite awhile. In addition to these, they had custom tilting mechanisms too.

Recently, they got a trunion/rotary table from another Kennemetal division and bought a two axis controller for it from Haas. The new Haas servo controller accepts Fanuc Macro B Dprnt statements (loaded via a second RS-232 port) so we decided to try to use those instead of the old stored program M-Code/Fin system they used before. The main advantage is that they just program the A and B axis in the part program now. A singe M-code/Fin combination still executes the motion and holds the machine until it is complete, but they no longer need to pre-store the A and B values in the Haas memory.

If anyone knows of a customer who may be considering an add on rotary, we are well versed on how to help integrate Dprnt into both the machine and the programming department.