Flushing Wire Electrode??

Happy new Year everybody!

When buying older edm's they usually flush with hoses, are today's newer machines all burning in immersed tank? and I guess also flush with hoses?
Can you tell me, what is a better system? are both using Water? I know most the ram type using
a "oily" Dielectric fluid, like my old Agie,....one thing I don't like about, because it's messy and the parts always oily!

What I also like to know about burning feed rate?
Let's say a 20 Year old machine, compare new today? 20 % faster, 50% or faster yet?

Here is a Elox, 20 year old, Tim The Grim's dream machine, I lost my bid,
is this price still a good buy??

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3862065567&ssPageName=ADME:B:WN:US:1

thanks,
Konrad

I don't know if $5K is a good buy or not. If this is a machine for heavy production use then maybe. As a machine for use occasionally to do odd work then definitely.

The submergered machines are nicer as they are less prone to wire breaks due to flushing loss and they are a lot less messy.

This machine was manufactured for Elox by Fanuc. Fanuc is still selling machines and Elox is now Agie.

Both the submergered and the flushing units use dielectric water.

I don't know the cutting speeds on the unit you saw on ebay, but the new units will run at 30in^2 per hour. that is a good clip and is measured as roughing speed through a 1" thick piece of steel. Aluminum and other materials will cut faster or slower. I don't know about how much faster I would suspect, I think that generator and software designs in the 90's brought the most performance increases.

I hope this helps.

Todd

Thank you Todd!

30in ?per hour??....Do mean, 30in per hour. into 1 inch plate? that's 1/2" per min.

As my memory is correct, the seller said on this old one about 1/8" per min.

So a new, or newer model about 300 to 400% faster?? is that correct??

Konrad

Yes that is correct. It is an area metric not a linear one. You need to know what the thickness of the plate that the the old machien was cutting but the 30in^2 per hour is for real.

Thanks again Todd!

The seller was saying, the new one he's got. cut's about double the feed rate.....
now I know why.

1.000" (t) / 60 (m) * 8 = .1333" so...
.1333 per min * 60 minutes = 7.98 square inches per hour. Which is proabably about right for that Elox.
The new fanuc cuts quote:
"Achieves the world's highest speed with economical brass wire. ~ 28 in.²/hr"
http://www.edmspace.com/static.php?page=static050104-214223
or
1.00/60*28=
0.467 per min

Tim
www.advancededm.com

This seems to me to be an end of run Model M. The controller on the one I ran was an earlier version. There may even be a few bells and whistles in there , like 3D graphics, that ours didn't have. I think $5100 is OK but I wonder if the power supply is different too. It was the particular power supply on our M that made it so much better for punches and small radii than the later model P which had the type of control in the add shown above.
Nice big work area though. We used to cut out cavities in dies to form Farberware roasting pans but could still make dies and punches to produce sequins and ring settings. We also built stainless / plexiglass "tanks" to do submerged machining production jobs. The wire on an M is threaded from the bottom up so you had an easier time with a bunch of pieces treed on a fixture in a tank, not having to thread downward or move out of position and back.