Hello,
I have a job right now that will require EDMing a rectangle out of a large box. It is all the way through the part. The material is 316L, the box is 4.9” tall, 7.28” wide, and 13.32” long. The pocket to be cut is 5.118” wide and 11.49” long, corner radius of 0.098”. I need the walls of the pocket to be square to 0.00039” to the bottom of the part and to the opposite wall. They also need to have an 8 micro inch surface finish.
We don't really have any EDM experience so I have been getting quotes out of house but I am not confident that someone can hit the tolerances I need. I also need a quick turn around or we are going to be screwed for the delivery date of the project. So far this project has had several delays due to people not being able to deliver on time or on spec. I am thinking about trying to convince the boss to purchase a machine so we can do the EDMing in house.
I gather that the surface finish is going be difficult to hit but it is only needed in a certain wall area so I could polish locally. My understanding is also that wire EDM is very accurate so the tolerances wouldn't be hard to hit as long as you take your time and do some roughing cuts and clean up cuts to work towards the tolerance. The width tolerance on the pocket is pretty loose, +- 0.005", but it needs to be VERY parrallel to the bottom wall and opposite wall, 0.00039".
Is this something I can do with an affordable used machine like a Fanuc Alpha 1B? Or do I need the accuracy of something like a Mitsubishi SX-20? Or do I need to spend $150K on a brand new wiz bang machine??
What other parameters go into producing a part like this?
I have a job right now that will require EDMing a rectangle out of a large box. It is all the way through the part. The material is 316L, the box is 4.9” tall, 7.28” wide, and 13.32” long. The pocket to be cut is 5.118” wide and 11.49” long, corner radius of 0.098”. I need the walls of the pocket to be square to 0.00039” to the bottom of the part and to the opposite wall. They also need to have an 8 micro inch surface finish.
We don't really have any EDM experience so I have been getting quotes out of house but I am not confident that someone can hit the tolerances I need. I also need a quick turn around or we are going to be screwed for the delivery date of the project. So far this project has had several delays due to people not being able to deliver on time or on spec. I am thinking about trying to convince the boss to purchase a machine so we can do the EDMing in house.
I gather that the surface finish is going be difficult to hit but it is only needed in a certain wall area so I could polish locally. My understanding is also that wire EDM is very accurate so the tolerances wouldn't be hard to hit as long as you take your time and do some roughing cuts and clean up cuts to work towards the tolerance. The width tolerance on the pocket is pretty loose, +- 0.005", but it needs to be VERY parrallel to the bottom wall and opposite wall, 0.00039".
Is this something I can do with an affordable used machine like a Fanuc Alpha 1B? Or do I need the accuracy of something like a Mitsubishi SX-20? Or do I need to spend $150K on a brand new wiz bang machine??
What other parameters go into producing a part like this?
. I'd rather learn the hard way and have a machine and a new capability for my business than to take the chance of losing this project because of someone elses screw up.