Hi bob:
Often there will be chips packed in the hole and there will be shattered pieces of drill too.
If they flop around while burning they will short the trode and stall the burn.
If that's your primary problem you have to be patient and pick or blow out the bits as they come free.
If your principal problem is that you are consuming a lot of electrode for no gain then SteveEx30 has put his finger on it and your settings are wrong.
I do best with a small copper tubing trode poked down under relatively high power and using reverse polarity as Steve recommends.
Tubing trode is cheap so I don't care how much I use up.
I prefer the coreless trode and I rotate it with a Rotobore and use moderate flushing pressure.
I let it wobble a couple of thou so it burns a bigger hole than a concentric trode would.
Cheers
Marcus
www.implant-mechanix.com
www.vancouverwireedm.com