[PokeyTeacher]

I'm looking at purchasing a Koike Aronson Monograph Millennium Series CNC Plasma cutter in the very near future. Before I go any further with the purchase, does anyone have any insight into this piece of equipment? Any kind of info, positive or negative, would be greatly appreciated.

[linatrol god]

Koike makes good machines, one of the world leaders in profile cutting machines. Would this be new or used? They use various CNC manufacturers for their controls. Which CNC is on the one you are looking at?

[PokeyTeacher]

I appreciate your response. I will purchasing this new. From the literature that I have, the CNC control that will come with it, is Koike KAR CNC PC based, which operates on Windows XP. That is all that I could find on it, from what I have. One other thing maybe you can help with? One model comes with a floating head, another model, that is more expensive, incorporates what they call an H3 Lifter head. What does this exactly mean and which one would you go with? Thanks again.

[linatrol god]

Im afraid I cannot help you there. I have never heard of that type of CNC control. As I said Koike uses different types, the CNC controls that we manufacture and that they purchase from us are Hybrid D11, Hybrid D9 and D10, Promotion and Profiler. I have no idea what a KAR is.
Sorry

[linatrol god]

The floating head is a pneumatic type torch hieght control, you set the height and it keeps itself at that height by rolling on balls across the plate and is held in place by the air pressure, usually used for thinner gauge.
The expensive height control would be best if you are cutting heavier gauge material, it will the set the voltage of the arc, monitor it and adjust the torch height to keep the voltage constant, therefore keeping the torch height steady.

[Al_The_Man]

I think the KAR is 'Koiki Aronson Control', as mentioned, they use different controls, maybe put their name on it, unless they have decided to put their own together.
They used Acroloop at one time which is another PC based motion card with Acrocut software.
Al.

[xjdubber]

if your looking at that price range, I would take a serious look at multicam and messer mg. Both are a better machine and better price.

[Dale Heart]

Pokey, for someone that's about to buy a NEW plasma system you seem to know nothing about plasma systems.

I guess you can get advice here... but the best advice you can get is real world going out and looking at shops with Koiki's in them or hop on a plane to Japan or China and see them getting made.

Also, you should look at other types of cutting as well, like oxy-fuel and laser so you fully understand the difference between them all and what you can expect quality and performance wise.

I guess another piece of advice is to find a few companies that sell the CNC software for these types of machines and ask their opinions. Because, these software guys sell onto any brand and usually know when things are going bad or well etc.

Also, I like Koiki a lot. I like Messer a lot too.

[awjareme]

im running a koike machine thats 3 years old now(used daily), and its been flawless. Plasma cutting is a snap with this machine, we have it incorporated with FastCAM, which is kind of crappy, but whatever you can draw in .dxf can be cut on the table. The servos/cpu have so far proved indestructable. The only thing is if your not familiar with these machines consumables add up fast. I also have oxy/acet integrated. We run the voltage height controller and it is nice for continuous cuts, but if you re-pierce a fair distance away from your last cut, and the plate is out of level/warped.. look out. I believe there is a pierce height controller out as well. Regardless it works well even for metal art, except for FastCAM which throws in an error here and there

[linatrol god]

Dale

"I guess you can get advice here... but the best advice you can get is real world going out and looking at shops with Koiki's in them or hop on a plane to Japan or China and see them getting made"
FYI
Koike machines are made in Arcade, New York.
There are many around the USA, if Pokey Teacher wasnt to go that route and see one in action it should be relatively easy.

[PokeyTeacher]

awjareme, thank you for your response. That is the kind of feedback that I was looking for in terms of the quality of the product.

[Dale Heart]

Dale

"I guess you can get advice here... but the best advice you can get is real world going out and looking at shops with Koiki's in them or hop on a plane to Japan or China and see them getting made"
FYI
Koike machines are made in Arcade, New York.
There are many around the USA, if Pokey Teacher wasnt to go that route and see one in action it should be relatively easy.

I don't pay attention to the American market. I just assumed KA imported their machines. Anyway, go have a look wherever they are made.

[linatrol god]

The KAR control is also called Promotion, it is made by Promotion Controls in the USA. The company I work for manufatured these controls for Promotion for about 8 years. They are a good control but for small jobs shops they are overkill. They are rarely used to their full capacity. Large shops that do alot of cutting and need to nest their parts, have a remnant library, load programs while cutting etc....are they typical shops that need something this powerful.
If the price was right I would go with the Koike machine with the Promotion control on it.

[michelle]

Is there anyone around that uses ProMotion Nest v4.19.16 ? I am trying to create steel silhouette signs and I am having issues using both CorelDRAW X3 AND AutoCad.... is the fix going to mean switching to SolidWorks? ProMotion nest doesn't see most my lines and has issues with splines as well as inserts when using AutoCAD.
Thanks
Michelle

[linatrol god]

looks like you will need to switch to something else. Promotion Nest does not do splines. Its as simple as that. It will do them in a series of small arcs.

[michelle]

Thanks for your reply, I also contacted ProMotion Nest Software Engineers and thought I would share this with you all for future reference.

"AutoCAD LT should be all that you need. R12 DXF is the preferred format.

The problem with splines and ellipses is that in CNC world we have only
two kind of elements: lines and circular arcs. Splines and ellipses are
neither, so they need to be converted to lines first. Some CAD softwares
can do this and I suppose AutoCAD LT can do it also.

Please note that CADs use to have really high precision and thus they
make the conversion to lines so that a curve is converted to hundreds
of really short lines. I don't know, if there is a setting for the
precision of conversion, but if there is, it's a good idea to set it
around 0.01". If the final cutting program includes hundreds of small
arcs, it takes longer to load it to a CNC controller and it's more
likely to cause other problems as well.

Splines are not supported in ProMotion Nest, but v4.22.1 (current
version) supports ellipses and partial ellipses. Ellipses are
converted to lines by Promotion Nest."

So now I am waiting to be directed to the updated version of ProMotion Nest, hopefully it might solve some problems.

Thanks again for your help.
Michelle

[awjareme]

I do a lot of sines/decorative stuff, and i find its real easy to just use arcs.
I have cut full 5x10 sheets with various animals lettering and tree lines without much trouble, it takes a while to load but not a big deal. On CAD it looks choppy sometimes but when its cut from steel, everything comes out fairly smooth. CAD has a tendancy to make things look worse then they are especially when your zoomed in. I also find with my KOIKE, when cutting high detail, if you enter a small kerf there is a lot less likely hood of a run off cut or the infamous circle cut out of nowhere (anyone else get these?)

Just a thought in CAD i frequently re-generate to get my curves back, could this be a weak graphics card or just a CAD flaw its AutoCAD 2004?

Also anyone have a good explanation on what a spline actually is? i mean how is it not just a series of arcs, and why are they so hard on CAM prgms?

Thanks

[michelle]

when i asked our draftsman about a splines he motioned jagged lines (he is from china and his english is poor) so when i draw out an elipse or something other than an arc....even using the staright line tool in almost any drawing program....if you zoom in you can see that the line itself is jagged....compare this to an arc and you will see the difference, so i think this is what he means by spline. Perhaps with the updated ProMotion Nest program it deals with the spline issue we so often run into...good luck

[m230042]

I think the KAR is 'Koiki Aronson Control', as mentioned, they use different controls, maybe put their name on it, unless they have decided to put their own together.
They used Acroloop at one time which is another PC based motion card with Acrocut software.
Al.

Arcoloop was the biggest mistake koike ever made and all were removed and replaced at koike's cost. I still have a dent in my arm from an acroloop "feature".

We called it the microwave ... I guess it was put together by accroloop for KAR. Damnest contraption I ever worked with.

[Al_The_Man]

Was that a fault of Acroloop or the person that integrated the front end software I wonder?
I have a couple of mills I am running an Acroloop on, they were a major contender for Galil until Parker took them over.
Al.