Hi again Luis:
Are you mostly making round section dies for cladding electrical cable or a similar application?
If you are, you are far better off investing in good CNC turning capability than investing in wire EDM capability, because for those kinds of dies, turning and polishing will get you a better die more quickly and more cheaply and a CNC lathe properly tooled will probably be far less of a headache to keep running in Costa Rica.
Your chances of getting a working machine for the budget you propose is also far more likely, and your sources of support are much broader if you buy something that lots of others have too and can supply you with repair parts and advice.
If, on the other hand, your part cross sections are complex and not round, and if they need to be smooth and uniform then a wire EDM is the obvious choice.
However I'm not very confident you will be able to get a good machine that will make you happy for $10,000.00 and many others here agree with me.
Since you talk about the dies you've made in the past as having been "hand made", my guess is these are simple shapes.
If that is so, milling them with a CNC mill is also an option, and with a bit of ingenuity and creativity, you can do an awful lot with a simple 3 axis VMC, decent milling software, and a small cutter grinder like a Deckel SO.
It is a less modern way, you have to be ingenious, but you don't have to keep a stable full of finicky machines in perfect condition and from what little I know of Costa Rica, I understand it's a challenge to do so there because support is not nearly so available as it is in the continental US and everything costs a lot more when it has to be brought in.
So in your particular situation, I suspect you would be taking a much bigger chance on buying an old machine that will break down sooner or later: simply because the first time you must fix it may kill the whole value of owning the machine and turn it into a money pit that will break your heart while it breaks your wallet.
Regarding your actual question about making dies in sections and putting them together; it's very difficult to give you a good answer without drawings models or at least pictures of what you're planning to make.
If you look at the wire as a glorified super accurate electronic bandsaw, you should be able to determine whether such an approach will help you; just remember the wire doesn't care if the job is hardened or not, and it will walk around a tall and complicated profile as easily as a short and simple one.
Tapers of greater than 5 degrees are harder, but so long as the machine can physically do it, a 25 deg degree taper is no harder to
program than a 1 degree taper, but it is still much harder to
cut successfully even when the machine is designed to do so.
Also if it quits on you, the complexity of the job will have no bearing whatsoever on whether you can nurse the machine through to the end of the job...when wire EDM machines quit...they're usually DEAD until they're fixed, and pretty much everything must be in decent order for them to be able to do anything at all.
So consider all of the consequences of deciding whether wire EDM is the correct process for you; it isn't an easy decision, and your local circumstances may have an important bearing on which decision to make.
Cheers
Marcus
Implant Mechanix • Design & Innovation > HOME
www.vancouverwireedm.com