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Is it possible to burn Hard metal with Copper electrodes?

msrbl

Plastic
Joined
Jun 14, 2016
Location
Gyor
I have a fairly new Mitsubishi EA8S machine and I need to burn a form into hard metal.
Since I've never burned hard metal only on our old manual NeuAr I was not aware that the machine itself has the parameters to burn hard metal with WoCu only.
My question is: does anyone has a technology set or parameters to make it work with copper?
Or should I just accept defeat and ask for a new set of electrodes? (My boss will be unhappy but I can live with that :rolleyes5: )
 
I work in a mold shop that uses copper electrodes for everything, including plenty of hard H13 among other materials.

I don't have and files or parameters for you but you should be able to make it work.
 
msrbl,

Are you asking how to machine Tungsten Carbide material on your machine? Your current Mits machine will be able to EDM Tungsten Carbide materials, but as you suggested, the use of Copper Tungsten electrodes will provide the best results. You can get away with using plain Copper electrodes to machine Tungsten Carbide, but your electrode wear will be VERY high, so be prepared to re-machine or re-dress your electrodes several times. You should use the Copper Tungsten to Tungsten Carbide settings even though you would be using copper electrodes.

-Brian
 
I pretty sure that burning with copper came BEFORE burning with Carbon electrodes. We use copper on reverse polarity all the time to for an expensive tap zapper.
 
What material are you trying to burn? We use only copper on all our hard h13, using the machines standard copper/steel technology as a baseline then have altered to suit over time. (Charmilles 35/35p and agiecharmilles form 200)
Are you trying to sink a profile/plunge, machine externally ir what? Cheers.
 
Thanks for all the answers!

The material I am trying to burn is called Wolfram Carbide or Tungsten Carbide or as we call it here Hard Metal. I knew it was possible to burn it with copper, I might asked the question wrong.
I was looking for a technique to avoid bad electrode wear on normal copper electrodes. I thought some might adjusted an epack to use in this scenario. But after all my boss ended up getting me Tungsten Copper so I will be fine. :)

Have a Nice day, everyone!
 
If you're burning carbide, get used to high wear. To cut down on wear I use copper tungsten for electrodes. Not cheap material to say the least.
Good luck!
 
yes you can burn with copper

i burn carbide all the time i use copper tungsten electrode and i use sodick and charmilles sinker edm,im a toolmaker
 
If ou mean cutting steel? Then all steels cut the same regardless of hardness. As far as I understand the variation in machining difficultly between materials is mainly down to conductivity
 








 
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