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Any Thoughts on AGIEcut with Startron?

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Aluminum
Joined
Jun 8, 2013
Location
Cleveland, OH
I used to run some old AGIE machines, and I recall reading about the Startron feature in the manuals, though my machines didn't have it. Now I'm working at a place where it would be extremely useful to be able to hole pop & thread wire at an angle. I'm constantly amazed that these guys are setting up on sine plates, hole popping, moving their setup, hole popping, moving the setup, hole popping... you get the idea, right? And THEN it gets to the wire room, where they set up on sine plates, cut one opening, move the setup, cut an opening... and so on.

So, getting to the point, has anyone had the opportunity to use a tilt-head AGIE with the Startron hole popper? Were they any good? If not, what went wrong? If they worked well, would it be worth it to try & hunt one down? I can find next to nothing when I search the web; I think there's a broker in China who has (or had) one, but I'm hoping to find something a little closer to home!

By the way, this isn't really my first post; just my new account, since the old one quit working, and I couldn't get it fixed.

D. Fox
 
I'd also be interested to hear about peoples experiences, just out of curiosity. I used to do a lot of taper work on an old HSS with the tilting head but never came across a job were I had to thread at an angle. I'd always have the holes drilled and thread square, then would apply the taper as the wire ran on to the profile.

I used peps to program this machine and I don't think it supported threading at an angle though I never tried it. What CAM system would you use to program it?
 
I've always done tapered and angled holes from vertical start holes, too, but in this case we're talking about holes that finish as elipses that are maybe 1.5mm x 3mm through a form that's at least 400mm 100mm tall. Kick 'em over on a 15deg. angle and place 8 of them around a 300mm radius... there's just no way to get away from making multiple setups, unless an old AGIE could do what I think it could.

We'd program it with ESPRIT - I've never used the 'thread on an angle' feature, but I know it supports it.


Edit: typed '400mm' instead of '100mm'
 
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If I follow what you're trying to do, I think the only cut machine that had the startron option that would cut over 400mm was the 350hss, which is a bit of rare machine. Is that what the one in China is? I worked on one for 3 years, great machine when it runs but it had a few 'quirks', The belt system was a pain on a machine that size but worked pretty well on it's smaller brothers. I also had issues of going through a lot of rollers on the wire draw off unit on the bottom arm. Though I never did try the same ones that worked fine on the 250hss. I also don't think from memory you could get 15° over 400mm.
 
i think you have a major misconception here. Startron will NOT pop a hole at an angle other than 90 deg to X-Y. The machine will indeed thread on an angle though. Now for my 2 cents
1) it doesn't spin the electrode.
2) guide is somewhat flimsy and small
3)not very accurate
4)MM and MMD generators don't erode well. (very slow) HSS generators do a decent job
5) you are tying up an expensive piece of equipment to do what a drill/mill can do with a little forethought.
6)When sold it was ~$25k you could by an actual hole popper for less back then.
7) It is manual in that the operator has to manually position the unit to burn the put it back away
8) It was a cool idea just to expensive and slow
 
Thanks for clearing that up, Agieman; I never would have guessed that the electrode doesn't tilt with the guides. You would think that if you're gonna add a hole popper to such a unique machine (in terms of tipping the guides & being able to thread on an angle) that you'd want it to be able to make holes at an angle, too!

That's a shame, that is.

Dan
 








 
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