Ran across this on FB. specs are at the bottom. It has a full fledge HAAS controller and is meant as a learning tool. The 1.5" z movement pretty much makes it useless though even if the endmill didn’t take up part of that. what the hell were they thinking? This is gonna end up one expensive toy mill.
agreed. colleges currently use the control simulators to teach low level Gcode programming so the desktop would be useful for proving in the toolpaths. But with such a low z height, it is useless for just about anything except flat work.
We picked up a simulator when we got the Haas at my university. It was great to be able to poke all the buttons but there was a serious disconnect between that and physically running a machine. I can see this being really helpful to bridge that, even without a probe or tool changer.
Tormach is ok if you intend to trash the thing in a few years or if price is the only concern. Personally, I wouldn’t buy a tool that is not made in Japan, Germany, or the USA. Yes I know most tools are made in China and for those of us who lived through the “Made in Japan” era, there was a dynamic shift… Japan had Deming who is credited with the lifting of Japan from a post war industry to the best in the world in many fields. China… has no Deming. So, I would recommend resisting a low price just because it looks good. Just an opinion but Hey, I saw Japan get legit. China… yeah… cheap but you get what you pay for. I don;t think it is wrong to consider it. Just walk into it with your eyes opened.
China has been getting a lot better at a lot of things very quickly. When the government dumps money into research and high value manufacturing instead of social and corporate welfare, a lot of stuff can be done.
yeah, that’s why ALL the laser board threads (as a for instance) start off with “I’ve got this XYZ chinese laser and it’s not working”. I think I see maybe two calls for help on ULS (my American made laser) per year. Next people will saying metrix is better than imperial
What’s the ratio of sales of the cheap, easily available Chinese lasers vs. the harder to buy (fewer places sell them) ULS laser? I would think that would also be a big reason why there are more questions on one side than the other.
no the base is different. ULS sells mostly to larger companies and government. They don’t generally advertise for the hobby market. they are workhorses.
even still, if there was a problem, wouldn’t they reach out to other uses for help? Yet I don’t see if very often. Quality costs, but oh so worth it. 1 problem in 19 years here (and that ended up being a loose wire).
Also keep in mind that ULS has a much better support group than the chinese companies selling cheaper lasers. We never had a problem with our ULS in school, but in a similar vein when one of our high end 3D printers would fail we’d go through Stratasys first rather than looking online for help.
back on track - while HAAS does have excellent support this little desktop won’t be of much value other than to prove in 2d (simple) toolpaths. the one thing it might offer is better control over speed and feed since the haas controller lets you change anything on the fly.