Thielenhaus Strecon E-Plus

Honing uses radially expanding abrasive stones that exert outward pressure against the bore wall during simultaneous rotation and axial stroking. Honing removes 0.01–0.5 mm of material and actively corrects bore geometry — roundness, cylindricity, and taper — while producing the characteristic crosshatch surface finish (Ra 0.05–0.8 µm). Bore superfinishing (as in the Strecon E-Plus) uses a low-pressure abrasive tool that removes only 0.5–5 µm of surface material without correcting bore geometry. The surface finish improvement is the objective — taking a honed bore from Ra 0.05–0.1 µm to Ra 0.005–0.025 µm while maintaining the bore geometry achieved by honing.

Common-rail fuel injector guide bores (the bore guiding the needle valve) require Ra 0.010–0.020 µm for consistent needle lift behavior and minimum fuel leakage past the guide. Servo valve spool bores (10–25 mm diameter) in high-performance hydraulic controls require Ra 0.010–0.025 µm with spool-to-bore clearances of 0.003–0.005 mm — clearances that require extremely smooth bores to avoid hydraulic lock. Precision linear bearing bores in metrology equipment and semiconductor wafer handling require Ra < 0.020 µm for consistent bearing drag force and positioning accuracy. All of these are within the Strecon E-Plus operating range.

Standard honing stones are rigid — when expanded against the bore, they impose their geometry on the bore, correcting roundness errors. The Thielenhaus Strecon elastic tooling mounts the abrasive element on a compliant elastomeric or spring-element holder that deforms to follow the existing bore surface rather than imposing the tool shape. This means the Strecon tool contacts the entire bore surface — including high spots (out-of-round regions) and low spots equally — without applying the corrective stone pressure that honing uses to cut the high spots preferentially. The result is uniform material removal across the bore surface, preserving the bore roundness achieved by honing while polishing the entire surface to a finer finish.

At Ra 0.01–0.02 µm target surface finish, any particle in the coolant larger than the target Ra value can scratch the bore surface and leave a mark deeper than the target finish — negating the superfinishing process. For Ra 0.02 µm work, coolant filtration must remove particles larger than 1–2 µm, requiring absolute-rated cartridge filters (not nominal-rated) at 1 µm absolute rating. The Thielenhaus Strecon E-Plus includes an integrated coolant filtration system designed for sub-micron bore superfinishing. Coolant must also be free of tramp oil and microbial contamination — superfinishing oil (petroleum-based) is preferred over water-soluble coolant to avoid bacterial growth in the fine filtration system.

Yes. The Strecon E-Plus is designed for integration into automated production cells in fuel injection and hydraulic component manufacturing. The machine includes a manual load/unload version (E-Plus Standard) and an automated version with robot interface (PROFIBUS, PROFINET, or Ethernet/IP) for automatic workpiece load/unload. In a typical automated cell, a 6-axis robot loads the honed component into the Strecon E-Plus fixture, the machine runs the superfinishing cycle (typically 15–60 seconds per bore), the robot unloads the finished component, and the cell transfers to final cleanliness wash and inspection. Thielenhaus provides complete cell integration engineering for high-volume automotive and hydraulic component production.