haas mini mill or hurco vm5i

I want a super small footprint mill, the mini mill with a couple of options is getting on for the same price as a hurco vm5i.

The hurco just seems much better spec and a chunk more metal.

Has anyone looked at both? Gut feeling is that the hurco is just a bit 'better' all round?

There is no clean cut answer, unfortunately.

The Hurco has a conversational control, so it's easier to program quick, one-off parts (arguably ).

Haas has better support and they probably have 5-10x as many machines out in the field.

Hurco may be a little more rigid but their chip evacuation and coolant storage doesn't appeal to me. (Some machines have a cast-in sump and recessed auger.)

ChipSplitter said:

There is no clean cut answer, unfortunately.

The Hurco has a conversational control, so it's easier to program quick, one-off parts (arguably ).

Haas has better support and they probably have 5-10x as many machines out in the field.

Hurco may be a little more rigid but their chip evacuation and coolant storage doesn't appeal to me. (Some machines have a cast-in sump and recessed auger.)

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in the uk the support is the same.

Hurco seems to big in the UK for some reason, For me with my experience is just bad from the first time I laid hands on one.

In 08 I was at a place called JET in Sanford Florida that ran all Hurcos except one Fadal. I was hired on since I knew code to run the Fadal and found myself doing all the complicated stuff for the same wage as the conversation Hurco guys. The owners excuse was the conversational guys could program faster and produce more so it weighed itself out. They got the one finger wave as I walked out the door with that statement.

Then recently I made a post on here about our place in China ordering (2) VM-20I's on Accident and they were just a flop as soon as they got power. Both had spindle vibrations felt throughout the shop, Coolant tanks always over flowed, Chip evac sucked, Side doors have no windows and are screwed on (A bitch to clean machine out), The front doors have enough lattice to stop a nuclear blast thus can't see shite, It only has one halogen light to see inside the machine that some genius decided to paint dark grey, Imagine trying to touch off a part in a cave with a flashlight!

Then the real problems started! They forgot to add the cabinet coolers so the install tech used a cutoff wheel to cut the panel opening while the doors were still on the machine filling the electronics full of metallic dust. The Renishaw probes had no insulation other than the 6MM rubber case so they were sliced open first week. They are belt drive and they had no clue how to align the spindle and motor sheaves to get the vibration out of the spindles.

A Lot of guys on her like Hurco and I guess the VMX series my have a little bit more gusto but I'll take the Haas over the Hurco anyday just from all the experiences.

Its strange as lots of feedback has been that the haas are just lower quality than the hurco's, at this size anyway. the hurco is nearly 1000lb heavier.

They seem to do well in germany also, where's there's some great machines made.

Check out Brother Speedio. I was going to get a mini mill, but ended up with a S500x1. It's been great. They also make a really small 300, but the door is really tiny, which would be a big pain if it's not being loaded by a robot. Same thing, you trick out a mini mill and you're up to an S500 which comes with half the stuff included.

CosmosK said:

Check out Brother Speedio. I was going to get a mini mill, but ended up with a S500x1. It's been great. They also make a really small 300, but the door is really tiny, which would be a big pain if it's not being loaded by a robot. Same thing, you trick out a mini mill and you're up to an S500 which comes with half the stuff included.

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I could do with something that goes under 2000mm for loading in, just where its going to sit.

Its strange as lots of feedback has been that the haas are just lower quality than the hurco's, at this size anyway. the hurco is nearly 1000lb heavier.

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In the video I made comparing the 2 Hurcos that came in compared to our Haas you can see the Haas not only out performs but also has much better visibility. And Hurco may be 1K pounds heavier but anymore that doesn't mean anything. Kinda like when Milltronics filled their cavities with cement to advertise the mass of the machine.

Haas VS Hurco... VF2-SS takes on VM-20 - YouTube

If you want a bit beefier Taiwanese made machine you should look at Feeler. Faster, Heavier, More power than the Hurco and $15K cheaper for a 30" machine.

g-coder05 said:

Hurco seems to big in the UK for some reason, For me with my experience is just bad from the first time I laid hands on one.

In 08 I was at a place called JET in Sanford Florida that ran all Hurcos except one Fadal. I was hired on since I knew code to run the Fadal and found myself doing all the complicated stuff for the same wage as the conversation Hurco guys. The owners excuse was the conversational guys could program faster and produce more so it weighed itself out. They got the one finger wave as I walked out the door with that statement.

Then recently I made a post on here about our place in China ordering (2) VM-20I's on Accident and they were just a flop as soon as they got power. Both had spindle vibrations felt throughout the shop, Coolant tanks always over flowed, Chip evac sucked, Side doors have no windows and are screwed on (A bitch to clean machine out), The front doors have enough lattice to stop a nuclear blast thus can't see shite, It only has one halogen light to see inside the machine that some genius decided to paint dark grey, Imagine trying to touch off a part in a cave with a flashlight!

Then the real problems started! They forgot to add the cabinet coolers so the install tech used a cutoff wheel to cut the panel opening while the doors were still on the machine filling the electronics full of metallic dust. The Renishaw probes had no insulation other than the 6MM rubber case so they were sliced open first week. They are belt drive and they had no clue how to align the spindle and motor sheaves to get the vibration out of the spindles.

A Lot of guys on her like Hurco and I guess the VMX series my have a little bit more gusto but I'll take the Haas over the Hurco anyday just from all the experiences.

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From that description, I have to wonder if the Hurcos you got in China were even the same machine that is sold over here... for example, I haven't ever seen one single Hurco with latticed windows.

From that description, I have to wonder if the Hurcos you got in China were even the same machine that is sold over here... for example, I haven't ever seen one single Hurco with latticed windows.

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That's a good possibility but as much grief as I gave Mike Garlick at at the China International Machine Tool show you would think they may have mentioned that.

Then again, the factory that makes Hurco makes several other brands that are all pretty much interchangeable. Hurco, SmartCNC, Feeler, Yang, Acra, Mighty Viper, Junkford, and so on.

g-coder05 said:

Then again, the factory that makes Hurco makes several other brands that are all pretty much interchangeable. Hurco, SmartCNC, Feeler, Yang, Acra, Mighty Viper, Junkford, and so on.

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This is interesting too.

I have never seen a VM series mill in person, but from pictures their construction appears entirely generic.

We have a DCX32 which is a fairly big bridge mill. There are a good number of other Taiwanese brands that have bridge mills that appear to be visually similar as a platform, but I haven't seen any of those in person to confirm that they are the same.

We also have a VMX64, which has a unique construction that I haven't seen on any other mill.

It's not clear to me if Hurco use generic iron or not.

Are the Thai castings better than the haas ones?

Reading what g coder says, are you on about the same machine? Have you used the vm5i/10 series? For a start they’re filled with led lights and no lattice windows?

frankychops said:

Are the Thai castings better than the haas ones?

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The machines we're discussing are Taiwanese, not Thai, and "better" is a pretty ambiguous term.

Taiwanese iron is fine, the difference is you tend to get a bit more of it for your money, meaning a heavier machine apples to apples. The trade off tends to be less sophisticated control integration and occasionally some questionable design elements. Lots of MTB's buy bare machines from Taiwan and do there own completion and control integration. Hurco is an example of this, although they claim to own their manufacturing in Taiwan, rather than buy someone else's machines - see my conversation with g-coder about that in my earlier post.

For example, we have two Victor lathes. They are 100% Taiwanese, sold through agencies in Europe and the US (They are/were called Fortune in the US I think). They are built like absolute tanks, extremely sturdy and reliable, real workhorse machines. The downsides are that the control integration is extremely basic, heavily relying on standard Fanuc functionality with little to no MTB functions added, and then niggling little fit-and-finish/feature design shortcomings - door window is placed in a stupid position, coolant routing on the turret sucks, tailstock limit switches mounted in a place where they constantly destroyed by chips; Things that in general are not a huge deal, but a nuisance.

From my point of view, I would sooner have a well built Taiwanese machine supported by a known MTB than a Haas.

I have an anecdote about that, that heavily influences my reasoning:

About 10 years ago there was a local-ish turning shop that did production for a big name parent company, they'd been around for years churning out the same stuff. It was determined that their fleet of machines, mainly old Moris, was old and tired and needed replacing. A sweet talking salesman talked them into replacing the whole lot with Haas machines. They were crippled for nearly a year trying to get their existing parts and processes running on the Haas machines, subcontracting all their production (which is how I know about this). People were fired, new people brought in to fix it, and so on until the mothership pulled the plug. The Haas machines never appeared on the UK market, I don't know what happened to them. There were rumours that they were put in containers and shipped to south america, but I have no idea why, or if that's true.

Absolutely no doubt in my mind they'd still be around had they bought Victor instead of Haas.

Another thing to bear in mind, perhaps important, perhaps not, is that the Haas name does not carry the same weight here in the UK as it does in the US. The Hurco will almost certainly retain resale value better than the Haas.

I'm kind of curious as to exactly what the problem was with the Haas machines. Would you care to elaborate?

theperfessor said:

I'm kind of curious as to exactly what the problem was with the Haas machines. Would you care to elaborate?

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Probably not the fault of the machines per se, just misapplication. I wasn't involved, just repeating what I was told at the time so not much to elaborate on.

The implication was that the new machines were simply too light and underpowered to replicate the work being done on the old machines. I was in the place once before this happened, it was all older Moris and some Mazaks, oilfield work. Certainly not a stretch to imagine that Haas were not a good fit for that - as was told to me, some of the shop floor guys tried to talk them out of it, but the salesfolk had just told them everything they wanted to hear, and they were ignored. Haas didn't have much of a presence here in the UK until more recently, so also not hard to believe that they were poorly informed when making the decision.

Another thing to bear in mind, perhaps important, perhaps not, is that the Haas name does not carry the same weight here in the UK as it does in the US. The Hurco will almost certainly retain resale value better than the Haas.

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I definitely agree with this statement 100%. I haven't figured out why Haas hasn't grabbed a foothold in Europe like they have the Americas and Asia. Seems on the mid level machines Hurco has that territory nailed down. I just lost my shop manager to De Havilland in Stonehouse England UK and they are buying Hurco VM-20's like we buy VF-2's.

>>OP, do you have a reason to limit yourself to just Haas or Hurco? I would consider a Doosan DNM 4000 or a Brother Speedio S500.

The Doosan is faster (1900 ipm rapids) and more rigid, and the Speedio is way, way faster.

Both of those should be priced comparably or a tad higher but will be much more machine.

It really all depends what you want to do. More details would help us.

I hear alot of crap about Haas lathes being underperforming. To be transparent, I've never personally ran a cnc lathe other than a Haas (well, operated a swiss just checking parts...), but we had an older SL30 and it cut 4140ph day in and day out. 10-12" dia blanks, removing most of the material, made clutch flywheels, and held tolerance all day long. Every cycle we put the load meter in the red too, and it just ran and ran...

To OP, not much experience with Hurco so can't say about that. One thing though, in the US (I see you are not) every one and their brother knows Haas controls, and the resale is absurdly high for some reason.

The fact that Haas publicly supports current racist organizations is enough for me that they would never get a dime of my money. Japanese MTBs seem to stay focused on machines and keep their politics quite. I would suspect the Taiwanese to share more in common with the Japanese than Americans but I could be wrong. I don't go actively searching for this kind of crap but when it gets shoved in my face I move on.

It may not matter to some or even most but, some people may care where their money is going.