Thread: compare 2004 Fanuc 1iC vs 2004 Agie Progress

Thinking of buying an agie progress. What are the differences in running cost, ease of use, consumables, maint., & part replacement cost. Any help would be great!

I don't really know first hand but suspect the Fanuc way less in maintenance cost. Is the Agie a "box" design such that all components are enclosed in one big box and already connected ? If so, that is one plus for the Agie...

Even the later Fanucs are like WEDM's of old in that the basic machine, control generator, water system, chiller and filtration/resin system are all seperate units and a major PITA to disconnect and reconnect... gazillion wires and water lines to deal with. Great machines, but oh what a pain if you need to move it from point A to point B.

Originally Posted by zosotd

Thinking of buying an agie progress. What are the differences in running cost, ease of use, consumables, maint., & part replacement cost. Any help would be great!

did you buy a progress

Fanuc,machine runs continuously been 4 years,without any problems and servising.My experience japan machines HITACHI they ran 18 years without problems.Our competitors run AGIE and is constantly broken, or have performed the service and implement their contracts with us "great" .We always had Japanese machines because they were better than the Swiss precision and sensitivity of maintenance.

Hi, it depends on your work. the Fanuc is a good machine no doubt it is very reliable. A few differences 1) fanuc uses round guides which have to be changed with the wire diameter if they wear throw them out and buy new my guess is ~$1000 dollars a set min. The Agie uses V guides, same guide for .013-.003 wire and because the V is created by 2 cones tip to tip >< they can be rotated to different contact points it's not out of the ordinary to get more than 15000 hours out of a set and replacements ar a couple hundred. The threader on the Fanuc takes longer but will thread smaller holes because it anneals and stretches the wire, the Agie does not but it threads and cuts the wire faster. The Agie should have 3D pick up on it, if it does there is no longer any need to indicate your part. The machine can pick up the TOP of the part as well as the side to make the wire perpendicular to the top plane and can rotate the program to match part rotation, it's awesome and it works. I would say, from what customers tell me, that the Fanuc is more reliable but if it breaksdown AgieCharmilles has more people to help you out. Hope i helped you out.

Agie is certainly a great machine,especially the super surfaces.Agie "V guides" I think it's way back.HITACHI this solution has left many years ago because it does not speed cut angle.Wire is not a beam in,many manufacturers preferred diamond guide (closed guide) minimum maintenance reasons.The guide for FANUC ALPHA 1iD 460,- EURO (set upper,lower) usability is 4000-5000 hours EDM-DEUTSCHLAND

Fanuc if you are doing pure easy production and just need to churn out the hours.
Agie if you are looking to do more complicated/extremely accurate stuff.

Software on Agie is second to none.
Saw a guy making real-time adjustments through the net.
He could even modify a program that was running!!!

Fanuc is of the old style...solid, sturdy, not a lot of bells and whistles to go wrong.
Agie has a lot of options that can all have issues...

If you don't have power windows, odds are you'll never have any problems rolling down the window.

matotope, to clarify Agie still uses V guides to this day. But it's the best of both worlds v guide for straight cut and up to 2 degrees then wide open round guide for taper over 2 degrees. both sets of guides are mounted on the machine and do not have to be changed to change wire sizes.

To the best of my knowledge, the guides never change regardless of angle. What *does* change is the toroids.

PM

Hi.

Go for the Agie Progress, stunning machine and will out perform many edm wire machines out there. If you need training let me know as I am an ex agie applications engineer and have been over to USA now 4 times to support companies

Hi Precisionmetal, Agie does make a special set for working in the 2-3 degree range. I don't know of anyone who has them. I am sure someone does though. They do not come with the machine and are for a very specific application. the standard toroids work for anything 2 degrees or more. I believe that is what you are referring to.
AGman

The Agie should come with a set of soft dummy toxoids that will allow angles upto 3 degrees. Hard ones have a carbide insert and allow angles upto 30 degrees. These are expensive to purchase and have configuration settings that should be in the machine in the configuration section of the machine.

Hi Neil, its 2 degrees not three. It is an AWSOME machine. My favorite since the 250 HSS

It's actually 3 I should know as I had input into its design, and ran one for 3 years. Check your settings

Neil, checked it. Maybe you should refer to the manual Chapter 3 sections 4.1 toroids. And you are right you SHOULD know lol

ahh good old agie manuals, have you actually tried to cut an angle greater than what should be allowed by control. The message you would see would state. MAX AGREED ANGLE EXCEEDS MACHINE CONTROL

Of course! so, if you had the dummy toroids in and the toroids off in Agievision, you would see that message if you exceeded how many degrees?

So all this lively discussion going back and forth about what it takes to wirecut an angle greater than 2 (or is it 3?) degrees really makes me wonder about the design intent by the Swiss engineers responsible for this incredible Rube Goldberg way of wire EDM.

On my Taiwanese wire, complete with its Chinglish Graphic User Interface, I can simply tell it I'm going to cut an angle, tell it at what height the target profile is above the table, which direction the taper is supposed to go and push the Big Green Button.
Ditto for complex upper and lower profiles.
If it's a super extreme angle I need to put in a soft wire and re-establish the location of the upper and lower guides with a simple canned interrogation program.
My 1996 Sodick was about the same although I had to tell it where the upper and lower guides were because it had a manual Z axis.

So why does all this extra complexity exist on the Agies?
I know Agie built its reputation on extreme precision; is this a necessary part of that, or is it just the "Swiss Way" of doing things?
Seems to me, it's a bit like the "German Disease" (it's OK, my heritage is German so I'm allowed) where everything is engineered within an inch of its life and screws up at the least deviation from ideal conditions, and then costs a fortune to fix.
Complaints lead mostly to a lecture on how stupid the user is.
I went through this with extremely expensive German Kavo and Siemens dental chairs back in the day when I was still a dentist; the cheap ass American Adec chairs just ran and ran.
Dig into the guts of these high zoot German chairs and you'd find more shit crap and garbage than Heinz has got pickles; it was absolutely amazing!

So a consensus from all interested parties: are the Swiss just perversely complicated, or is there a REAL reason you have to go through all this just to cut a 2 degree (or is it 3?) taper?
Inquiring minds want to know!
Cheers

Marcus
Implant Mechanix – Design & Innovation - home
Vancouver Wire EDM -- Wire EDM Machining

Let's ask Neil, he was in on the design remember. it's not really very complicated at all. It just sounds that way. But boy are you right about the Suisse way LOL That's what happens when you mix German, French, and Italian under one roof! I can tell you this, They do some crazy shit but ALWAYS have a reason behind it. So it is not overly complicated but different and there is a REAl reason behind it.

The Progress was an evolution of the design of the first Agievision Classic machines. The classic was non submerged, then came Evolution, Challenge etc. The progress was a high end machine and intended to replace the Excellence etc. You are correct in assuming many languages under one roof, that was indeed the case, just look at the documentation and some of the words used on the controls, eg Correzione (Corrections). The documentaion, sales speal always conflicted what was actually possible and indeed achievable on a machine, eg taper angles and cutting outside work limits to give just two examples. Much more is indeed possible on these machines than many people actually realise. Perhaps thats why I have an advantage in that area, having worked for Agie and also running my own Agievision controllled machine for many years, plus I have documentation not available unless you were actaully employed by agie and direct access to engineers etc in the homeland of Switzerland