Sandvik Capto / Kennametal KM?

[Dave.L]

Hello All,

 

I am considering some quick change tooling for our Mori NL1500SY and I am looking into Capto and KM. I am looking at static holders now but the live tools would be something down the road.

 

Anyone using these and what have your experiences been? Our motivation is setup reduction along with keeping tools for repeat jobs setup (and tuned in so to speak).

 

I am concerned about repeatability and rigidity.

 

Thanks all.

[GoetzInd]

We have capto on all our machines and it's a great system. Big start up bucks, but worth it. I bet KM is a good system too, but have never actually cut with it. I guess it comes down to what you already use the most. Sandvik, or Kennametal. Keep in mind a lot of people are making capto now, not so much KM.

 

Mike

[Dave.L]

Hey Mike,

 

If you don't mind (and have the time) please drop me an email with a picture of one of your turrents tooled up with Capto. Any other input would be cool tool such as why you did it and such. I assume the Capto patent must have run out if others are making it.

[gcode]

I moved this to the Machining forum... might get more action here..

I have some limited experience with Capto... they work very well for what I've used them for..

 

a couple of examples..

Captos stacked up to yeild a 16" gage lenght for a 4" face mill

Captos stacked up to get an 14" gage length for a 3/8 stub carbide rougher

they are not cheap, but they are very strong

[David Colin]

We have Mazak Integrex with Capto C6 and another with Kennametal KM63XMZ. I think both systems are similar in performance, but Capto is much more popular so tools range is greater and cheaper. Capto holders can be bought everywhere... KM can be found from Kennametal and...from Kennametal. lol. However, i found some holders from Mimatic.

[chris m]

We have [20] CNC lathes with C4 Capto OD tools and C5 Capto ID tools. The only place we've experienced rigidity problems is with a machine with a VDI40 turret (VDI sucks regardless, but our VDI / Capto experience has not been great) and with large / long Udrills (over 1.5" dia). The big Udrills work OK with a C5 coupling, but the straight shank are quieter in stainless. Otherwise we take some reasonably heavy chips with no issues and accuracy (we're under .0005 all day long, every day) is no problem. I would estimate that we have somewhere between 800 and 1,000 Capto cutting heads in the building now and it is always growing. I have no experiece with the KM quick-change system at all, but Capto is excellent. The downside, of course, is that the tools are quite expensive when compared with stick tools, but the time savings should pay for that.

 

C

[Dave.L]

Thanks for your feedback guys! I am looking to start slow...We have a few sensitive aerospace parts we run every month and I try to keep the machine tooled up for those. I need to change over just a few tools for other work. So, I plan to think about boring bars and ID groove tools for now.

 

Thanks for the help!!

[BrianCNC]

We have an NL3000Y/1250 and it is Capto as is all of our lathes. We are looking at capto live tooling now.

[gary adams]

We went with KM over capto, when we looked at capto with smaller boring bars the solution was a side lock holder and standard bars, at the time from 16mm shank down to 10mm shank, km offer integral km tools, if you put a standard boring bar in the holder the overhang kills you, unless you pay for anti vibration bars. I cant fault the km although we are restricted to kennametal u drills but we can live with it.

Gary

[GoetzInd]

[SKIR68]

we use capto in our Okuma Multus. No issues here, very solid stuff.

[Guffie]

We are using the KMX63 on our Integrexes and it works really great.... We use Capto on both lathe and milling machines and it works really great too... As other people also wrote, the range of possibilities with Capto is bigger, since it's much more used and therefor a wider range of tools... Extremely good for tough jobs, especially if longer overhang is needed....