Here at the Machinist School in Northwest Arkansas, we have a Haas TM-1 CNC Milling Machine. The TM stands for "Tool Room". There is one basic reason for the choice of the TM-1 mill. That reason is because the Haas control panel is standardized ..... Haas uses the same basic control panel for all of their machines and has done so for over 10 years.Why are you using Microsoft software? Because it is the greatest? No ..... because it is a standard. When you choose Microsoft, you have chosen compatability.
Would you buy a car with the gas pedal on the left and the brake on the right? Not likely, huh?
Same thing with Haas. When an operator has become familar with the Haas control panel, he has become familiar with ALL Haas Control panels.
Of course, there are odd things one would not expect. For instance, Haas has their own version of 5/8 of an inch. A machinist would say .625". Many setups on a Bridgeport mill became standardized to the 5/8" T-slot in the table of the mill. Haas wisely chose 5/8 inch as their T-slot size. Unfortunately, 5/8" is subject to tolerances. In this case, about .011". The 5/8 T-slot on this mill is about .636. Not Metric, not an American standard. So we make custom parallels and keys for the fixtures to accomodate this quirk.
