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Eltool right angle head


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We are looking at a CAT501M. We will be drilling some .191 holes in some titanium ribs in a part, the ribs are about .18 thick. I'm curious how the head repeats between tool changes or when you take the head out of the machine. Since the dogs in the spindle are a pretty loose fit to the tool holders, seems like the head would only repeat +/- a few degrees, especially if you  remove it manually?  

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We had one, that was custom made, that we had all sorts of problems with, but it was also like 14" long.  We had to rebuild the motor in it very often.  We could never really figure out why, nor could ElTool. That being said, I've used more reasonably sized ones, and they worked fine.

 

We ran ours on an Okuma MA-600.  The spindle didn't have a mechanical brake so it kind of oscillated.  On a .0001" indicator you could see the spindle vibrating when it was locked.  We ended up making a sort of collar, with v grooves at the positions we needed.  Then had a small air cylinder with a mating v groove.  We would rotate the spindle to the appropriate position, then an M-code fired the air cylinder and held the head in place.  That worked great, but if we didn't keep an ear on it, the motor would weaken, and the tool would stall.  (3/8 endmill in aluminum casting). I suspect the loooong length, and skinny "driveshaft" meant a lot of torsional twist on that driveshaft.  

 

I will say Nik Tesla in the shop there was great to deal with, but he has sadly passed away.  Not sure who they have now, as it's been awhile since I've dealt with them.  

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On 1/28/2022 at 7:57 AM, Bill Keinschmit said:

We are looking at a CAT501M. We will be drilling some .191 holes in some titanium ribs in a part, the ribs are about .18 thick. I'm curious how the head repeats between tool changes or when you take the head out of the machine. Since the dogs in the spindle are a pretty loose fit to the tool holders, seems like the head would only repeat +/- a few degrees, especially if you  remove it manually?  

They repeat good the biggest thing is the timing lug on the machine. Once setup and running should be able to repeat within .001" with no problem. Use a Pin the head and write a loop program to tram the head in when working on any angle.

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We have one but not on a Haas. I would not manually tool change it. When we load it into a machine, we toolchange it 3-4 times, then indicate it in. After that it repeats very well as long as someone does not manually remove it. (Very well = ±.0005 1" out from the collet nut is what I saw)

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We have quite a few El-Tool angle heads in here. Most are being used to slot and profile titanium in production environment. Some just do simple drilling. We have a few different sizes. Some are CAT50 some are Capto-C8 and some are straight shanks.

All of ours are used on Mazak Integrex machines. Great tools from our experience. 

 

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