Review: Kappa Edger from Gerber Coburn

[jcwest94]

Grubendol- Is your opinion still the same for the AIT?

[Grubendol]

My opinion on the AIT has adjusted slightly...The edge polish is not quite as nice as the Santinelli, and I would say that retouching doesn't come out as nice as I would like, after a second cut, however, almost every issue I've had has been immediately fixed by consulting with their tech support.

The biggest gripe would probably be the safety bevel, but that is being fixed when we get the new Evolution model in a few weeks.

[Clive Noble]

Kappa Problems

I agree. I have experience with both the Briot and Kappa drill units. The Briot has some nice features, but does not drill perpendicular to the front surface of the lense. It also could only edge down to about 38mm "B" measurement when drilling and I found the auto blocker to be very inconsistant. The Kappa CTD has been performing flawlessly and I am very happy with Gerber's service when I did have questions.

Sorry to resurrect this thread. We took delivery a couple of months ago of a new Kappa CTD with all the toys attached, drill, bar-code scanner etc.

Even though it appears to be an easy machine to operate, a few years knowledge of optics and edging helps enormously, the possibilities of what can be done to a lens are just endless. It could be an amazing state-of-the-art tool.

The auto grooving and faceting are quite awful, so every job is done with operator control, that's fine by me as I also insisted on doing this with our previous Accura.

Before I go any further I have to say I have been edging for nearly 40 years...so I do know a little bit..... but
we're obviously doing something wrong somewhere with the Kappa..... lenses are breaking, 10% of jobs are coming out off axis, the local technicians have been endless times and reset everything and funnily enough everything is OK when they are with us.

The worst problems are with Phoenix (Trivex) I've been using this material from 'day one' with no problems, and we use a lot of this stuff. The Kappa takes sometimes 12 minutes to finish a lens, using gallons of water in the process. (water is precious here)

On our old Accura, Trivex was cut dry on the rough wheel and wet on the finish. It's the opposite on the Kappa.
We end up with tons of swarf which finds its way to the drill, builds up and leaves marks on the front of the lens.

High cyl lenses and high minus Rxs are too thick for the plastic rough wheel, so they hang over the edge, when they finally break away, the break nearly always travels to the centre of the lens...... I have wasted many hundreds of dollars on replacing expensive lenses..... but no more, because now, I roughly mark the lens with the approx shape of the final eye and go back to my roots and spend 5 minutes hand edging the lens to an approximate shape so I can put it on my $40,000 state of the art machine.

Do I sound annoyed?...... you bet I am.

I wonder where my old Accura is today!!!!! Quite honestly I only changed the machine because of the drill facility....... it is good, but my old hand method with the Dremel was just as good, certainly faster!

I'd love to hear from others with more experience of this animal

[mike.elmes]

The trivex lenses should be rough cut dry and pretty much edged like a poly. The only difference from cutting trivex to poly is the feed speed.

Contact hoya, as I did about the edging of Trivex and that was their advice....and it definately saves some time and PLENTY of h2o.

[obxeyeguy]

kappa

I agree with mike. I have 2 Kappas, (not the ctd), no drilling, and cut all trivex as poly and change the edger to the slower feed rate. 2 stars on mine, it feeds the lens slower, but doesn't take more than 4 minutes total.
I cut most lenses on this setting, 75 mm blanks into 48 eyes is a lot to come off quickly, to much tork on pad.

[MarcE]

Yes, Trivex= dry rough, dry finish, wet polish. If I try to cut trivex wet, my edger will push down so hard that the roughing wheel finally stops! It just won't cut wet, in my experience.

Get some "G/K" blocks from BPI, and throw away the plastic gerber blocks. These new blocks are flexible (silicone rubber, I think) and get much better adhesion to the lens. In fact, I sometimes can hardly pull them off with the deblocking pliers!

The reason that the lenses are slipping is that the blocking pad is soaked in water for 12 minutes. After a while the water works it's way into the pad and it starts to de-block.

I think the previous posts nailed it. Trivex must be rough cut dry.

[HarryChiling]

Sounds like you may hav some pumps or hoses hoked up wrong.

[LENNY]

Get some "G/K" blocks from BPI, and throw away the plastic gerber blocks. These new blocks are flexible (silicone rubber, I think) and get much better adhesion to the lens. In fact, I sometimes can hardly pull them off with the deblocking pliers!

.

What color are those?

[LENNY]

We end up with tons of swarf which finds its way to the drill, builds up and leaves marks on the front of the lens.

I'd love to hear from others with more experience of this animal

You HAVE to clean the drill every time you drill the thicker lens!
It is very easy just press the move the whell botton when nothing is in the chamber!

[MarcE]

What color are those?

They are Red. If you got a BPI sales flyer in the mail today or Saturday, they are on the front cover. They are called "G/K" blocks. Stands for Gamma/Kappa. Best investment I ever made. Off axis lenses are much reduced.

[ian lindsey]

Hi wit
h ref to your comments about the Kappa edgers i have found the machines to be very unreliable .We run two edgers and have had many problems with both edgers.Allthough this is an industrial site we also run two Nidek 9000 and have found them to be far superior in every aspect ie, quality production and reliability.Hope this helps.

[OZ FITTER]

Astounded at the reviewshttp://www.optiboard.com/forums/images/smilies/jawdrop.gif

Guys, I have been searching the web for some answers to the problems that we are having with our Kappa edger and stumbled across this forum. I can only believe that the Kappas that you get in the USA are different to the ones we have in Australia. Let me tell you about our troubles. The machine arrives and we set it up according to the manual, do a few test lenses to check sizing, bevel position, etc,etc. Do the first nylon job, the groove runs off and changes direction at will. Call the service tech, thinks he has fixed problem. Little does he know. Problems with the groover, the drill and even with the pin bevel wheel coming apart, axis trouble such as the shape being off axis to the block, ie the shape information went through to the machine incorectly. Any way to cut a very long story short we have had 5 different tracer/blocker units and 4 edging machines. We are still having a problem with slippage on the block but this only happens on Hoya VP coated lens and the multi coat used by CR Surfacing, we do use the [supposed] non-slip pads supplied with the lenses but there is still a problem. As far as I know the pressure cannot be increased any further as it will cause damage to the lenses, so we have been told by Gerber Coburn. If there is any one out there who may have any ideas on what to do please let me know other wise I will be calling Nidek to find out if there latest machine can do a quadrent controlled bevel and use this Kappa as a boat anchor. Yours in frustration OZ Fitter

[IC-UC]

Hey Oz Fitter, I know your pain. We also had the kappa edgers, but gave way to the nidek. Now we are trouble free......:cheers:

It was very long ago that we had our kappa's, so i can not give you any advice on the edging. But if you want to decrease your waste, time, effort etc....go with the nidek. We use their tracers and edgers (me1000) and the techs working on them only praise them. We do have Weco's but for the more intricate work decided that the Nideks were better.

Good luck, your (unfrustrated) friend in Sydney!!

[IC-UC]

Just wanted to say that I am in no way affiliated to Nidek, or any other machine manufacturer. It may have come across that I was lauding the Nidek's at the expense of other machines, but this is not so.

Whilst i have great respect for the Weco machines, and (long ago) was a fan of the kappa's, I prefer the new technology and ease of use that Nidek has introduced.

[Thumbs]

Guys, I have been searching the web for some answers to the problems that we are having with our Kappa edger and stumbled across this forum. I can only believe that the Kappas that you get in the USA are different to the ones we have in Australia. Let me tell you about our troubles. The machine arrives and we set it up according to the manual, do a few test lenses to check sizing, bevel position, etc,etc. Do the first nylon job, the groove runs off and changes direction at will. Call the service tech, thinks he has fixed problem. Little does he know. Problems with the groover, the drill and even with the pin bevel wheel coming apart, axis trouble such as the shape being off axis to the block, ie the shape information went through to the machine incorectly. Any way to cut a very long story short we have had 5 different tracer/blocker units and 4 edging machines. We are still having a problem with slippage on the block but this only happens on Hoya VP coated lens and the multi coat used by CR Surfacing, we do use the [supposed] non-slip pads supplied with the lenses but there is still a problem. As far as I know the pressure cannot be increased any further as it will cause damage to the lenses, so we have been told by Gerber Coburn. If there is any one out there who may have any ideas on what to do please let me know other wise I will be calling Nidek to find out if there latest machine can do a quadrent controlled bevel and use this Kappa as a boat anchor. Yours in frustration OZ Fitter

In the states the drilling Kappa is called the Kappa CTD. When we purchase an edging system, installation and training is included, we do not expect the machine to be removed from the box and be operational immediately. There are calibrations that are done with the Kappa CTD to rectify the issues that you are explaining, but you need the complete CTD calibration kit with calibration fixtures.

To check the chuck pressure, with the edger on and initialized, hold the #9 button down and press #2 releasing at the same time, the screen will change to the chuck pressure adjustment screen. You can adjust the chuck pressure individually based on block diameter and lens material. In my experience, setting the chuck pressure to the maximum will only affect lenses that have a 1.0mm center by flexing the lens. In this case, you should select the fragile (2 stars on button #5) setting.

There is also a calibration for the pin bevel where you edge a flat, plastic lens with the square/diamond shape. If the pin bevel is not equal on all four sides you make the adjustment in the service screen by rotating the axis of the pin bevel.

I have been using Kappa systems and Nidek systems for years and I much prefer the Kappa, especially when I have to do maintenance.