When I first saw that machine I thought "no thank you" because of the stepper motors and the fact that it is an import machine. And I think it had rolled ball screws (though I may be mistaken). But I spent about an hour on their site yesterday, and either they have improved their mills over the last few years or my thinking has, for whatever reason, changed a little. I totally appreciate their no-BS-telling-it-like-it-is approach to discussing the subject of what the tool does, what it doesn't do, what you need and why it is or isn't the right tool for you. I wish the big machine tool builders were so straight forward.
Stepper motors used to be a bad thing, and while no industrial machine tool builder today uses them, they may well have improved to the point that servos aren't imperative. The ball screws are ground, not rolled. The maximum feed rate is fast enough. The spindle speed is great. It is heavy enough and constructed for real work (bed mills trump knee mills). Lots of good machine tools are import. I'm told the castings for Haas come from China, and knowing Gene Haas, perhaps half of the other stuff too. I'd say, overall, it looks pretty good for what it claims to be. I wish I could get a few hours on one.
I'm still of the opinion that a better use of the money would be to buy a good, dead, small CNC mill (not worn out, just old and a bad controller, fairly common) and install the retrofit yourself. The Mach3 and motion controllers are aren't too expensive or difficult to setup. But I do understand why folks are a little trepidatious about jumping into that, and a shiny new turnkey system like this is pretty attractive.
