Machine-wire material limitations

Kealan · Jan 24, 2017

Hi,

I am looking to source a new EDM wire cutting machine but I am new to this area. I have been talking to some suppliers and they have informed me that their machines are wire material specific, a brass wire cutter machine will only use a brass wire.
I do not fully understand this point, why can an EDM wire cutter not operate with various wire types? I questioned my contact with the supplier but all I got was that each machine is wire specific. Wire properties seem a key aspect of the cutting ability so I am interested in knowing why this is the case.
regards,

gking86 · Jan 24, 2017

Kealan said:
Hi,

I am looking to source a new EDM wire cutting machine but I am new to this area. I have been talking to some suppliers and they have informed me that their machines are wire material specific, a brass wire cutter machine will only use a brass wire.
I do not fully understand this point, why can an EDM wire cutter not operate with various wire types? I questioned my contact with the supplier but all I got was that each machine is wire specific. Wire properties seem a key aspect of the cutting ability so I am interested in knowing why this is the case.
regards,

It's all pretty much brass wire anyway. Plain brass wire, brass wire with zinc coatings, brass wire with different cores. The wire you pick depends on what you are going to be cutting primarily and how wide you want your kerf to be. The only other wire I can think of is Belmont carries Moly wire, which I'm pretty sure doesn't require anything different as far as the mechanics go.

Brass wire is just the right trade off of tensile strength, flexibility, conductivity and wear properties. Just to clear up a point, and forgive me if it seems condescending, but you know brass wire can cut any of the materials the wire machine is designed for right? It's not brass wire cuts only brass.

BillDe · Jan 24, 2017

I don't know what kind or brand of machine your "supplier" is selling, but he is not very will informed or knowledgable about WEDM. Do a google search and check out Mitsubishi or any other reputable brand.

Bill

pmack · Jan 24, 2017

What kind of work are you going to use it for? Brass wire covers the majority of applications, once you include coated wires. Do you have a specific need for moly or tungsten wires? Unless you have a need to run .004 wire diameter or less, most likely there is a brass wire that will work fine.

Kealan · Jan 24, 2017

Thanks for the replies, I could not conceive why an EDM machine would not be able to handle different wires, I would assume that the different parameters are all variable on a wire in use (applied tension, current, etc.). The piece I am looking to cut is mainly limited by cutting rate so brass is looking attractive, however, I am looking to limit contamination of the cut piece.
The machines were brass and a Moly fitted EDM wire cutters, both producing adequate performances for my needs, but the Moly machine was considerably cheaper.
p.s. gking86 apologies for the miscommunication, I understand that EDMs can cut essentially any material, I meant that the machine was designated as a brass wire EDM that could only used a brass wire as its cutting element.

KilrB · Jan 25, 2017

We have:

2 Brother HS-70A machines, they use brass wire ... coated or not.

2 Charmiiles Robofils, they are capable of using straight brass, coated brass, and coated copper.

2 Agie-Charmilles CUT machines, same as the Robofils.

We had a spool of .003" Moly around here for years that had been used on our old Andrew-Charmilles machines at some point but I never had cause or need of it.

It and the machines have been gone a while now.

We had a job in here a couple years back that the customer insisted we use nickel wire. There's a thread about it buried here somewhere. I didn't work out well ...

Sodickguy · Jan 25, 2017

Most of the reputable major brand EDMs shouldn't give you difficulty with different types of wire. Sodicks can handle brass as well as coated and moly wires. I don't know why it'd be an issue.

Can I ask what specific brand your "supplier" was selling?

implmex · Jan 25, 2017

Hi All:
Yes of course all brands of wire EDM can handle more than one wire type, but some apparently do have generators that are optimized to, and will give better performance with specific wire types.

I understand, for example, that Charmilles machines of a certain vintage would see very large performance improvements with specific brands of stratified wires whereas my Sodick showed almost no improvements in cutting rate with the same super expensive stratified wire, and was just as productive running plain hard brass wire at under half the cost per spool.
So on a Charmilles, the wire cost was justified by the higher productivity while on my Sodick it was a waste of money.
Apparently the Charmilles running the stratified wire was something like 50% faster roughing tall parts than my Sodick was.

Could this perhaps be what the sales guy was talking about?
I wonder if that's still true with the modern spark generators?

Cheers

Marcus
Implant Mechanix • Design & Innovation > HOME
www.vancouverwireedm.com

precisionmetal · Jan 25, 2017

Marcus,

I believe you're absolutely correct, and also feel that modern generators do a very good job with straight brass wire in most cases. The Agie Cut2000 I ran for a few years didn't seem to care -- straight brass worked well on any typical material.

My '96 Agie HSS that I had though... the difference from straight brass to coated wires was HUGE. In steel, something like CobraCutA was probably 25%-50% faster cutting then straight brass. The most "magic" thing ever though was using CobraCutD (copper core) wire cutting aluminum, where I could cut 1" or 2" thick aluminum at 50 sq/in per hour. It made even a bigger difference on very tall aluminum... often taking a job from almost impossible to cut to a piece of cake. Of course the stuff was $550/roll and nearly impossible to auto-thread, but it would pay for itself many times over on the right job.

PM

Sodickguy · Jan 25, 2017

implmex said:
I understand, for example, that Charmilles machines of a certain vintage would see very large performance improvements with specific brands of stratified wires whereas my Sodick showed almost no improvements in cutting rate with the same super expensive stratified wire, and was just as productive running plain hard brass wire at under half the cost per spool.
So on a Charmilles, the wire cost was justified by the higher productivity while on my Sodick it was a waste of money.
Apparently the Charmilles running the stratified wire was something like 50% faster roughing tall parts than my Sodick was.

Could this perhaps be what the sales guy was talking about?
I wonder if that's still true with the modern spark generators?

Its a yes and no answer. I think a lot of modern power supplies are well-rounded. That said, you can still get some performance differences out of different wires. On the newer Sodicks, for example, there is an extra library of cutting conditions that works really well with coated wires. But as you can imagine, it will always come down to the job you're running to determine what kind of wire is going to do the trick.

Kealan · Jan 26, 2017

Sure, HighTech cnc machines is one example.

gking86 · Jan 26, 2017

Kealan said:
p.s. gking86 apologies for the miscommunication, I understand that EDMs can cut essentially any material, I meant that the machine was designated as a brass wire EDM that could only used a brass wire as its cutting element.

No need to apologize, I just spent 15 years in IT before I got into machining, so just used to weird things happening due to miscommunication. Just wanted to make sure

Johnny Larue · Feb 9, 2017

Kealan said:
Hi,

I am looking to source a new EDM wire cutting machine but I am new to this area. I have been talking to some suppliers and they have informed me that their machines are wire material specific, a brass wire cutter machine will only use a brass wire.
I do not fully understand this point, why can an EDM wire cutter not operate with various wire types? I questioned my contact with the supplier but all I got was that each machine is wire specific. Wire properties seem a key aspect of the cutting ability so I am interested in knowing why this is the case.
regards,

this is due to the capacitors of the machine and the EPACK or PARAMETER settings for each material and thickness there of....the ON time, the OFF time, the GAP, the CAPACITANCE if any, the water flushing PSI, the SERVO VOLTAGE, and so on and so on....if your familiar with a ram also you will understand this since when using a COPPER rod (aka copper wire) or TUNGSTEN CARBIDE rod or COPPER TUNGSTEN rod or BRASS Rod or GRAPHITE to ram a piece or shape....each rod (aka wire) used will have way different on and off times and capacitance and gap.....so in short most machines just utilize a nominal average material which has the most properties like wear and availability and researched settings of these parameters....and brass fits the least expensive and most consumer availability and other criteria so most machines are wire dependent due to this aspect....does that help

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Machine-wire material limitations

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