Commissioning Used Brother HS-50A (5-axis)

I have been tasked with attempting to make this wire EDM machine into a useful piece of equipment. Everything seems functional for the most part, and I was able to cut a small "wrench shape" from 0.270" 4140HT. I have virtually no experience running an EDM so I was pretty thrilled with that outcome.

However, I have quickly discovered that this in no way makes me an EDM expert. Hell, it doesn't even make me a novice. Fortunately I'm a quick learner.

For those of you who consider yourself experienced, where would you start with an unknown machine after verifying basic functionality? I'm waiting for some new wire guides and I expect that I should be checking/setting the vertical wire alignment. I do NOT have the wire alignment gauge/block that plugs into this particular machine. If one could be purchased for a somewhat reasonable price, that's an option. If someone can give me pointers on doing this manually without the gauge that could be even better. I expect that I can make a test cut and indicate it, but I wouldn't know where to start changing parameters to compensate.

Auto-threading doesn't yet work reliably (ok, doesn't really work at all) but I'm expecting (hoping like hell) that new guides are going to magically fix this. The existing lower guide is pretty beat up. The upper doesn't seem too bad but the wire usually doesn't feed through automatically. I've noticed that when the wire is cut by the machine there's a pretty significant curve on the end of the wire. Should this be completely straight after cutting, and if so where would I start to remedy this? Of course, I've gotten quite good at threading it manually because I'm a certified expert at breaking the wire....

What else, in order of priority, do I need to consider before attempting to make parts with any sort of precision and repeatability?

Finally, am I completely insane to agree to this task? Have I bitten off more I can chew?

With no one to teach you it’s a task, not impossible though. Have you got all the manuals? Also cleaning out the heads will help with auto threading from my experience. And I have never seen someone align the wire with out the jig, not saying it’s impossible though. But you may be able to make one yourself or speak to the manufactures directly about a refurbed one.

Oh and good luck

I would expect you could make a squaring block like Sodick uses, and go from there? Approach it with a very low power setting, dry, and as soon as the wire hits the block, adjust your U or V to get an even spark across the entire face of your squaring block. (It should be hardened and ground square)

Luke.kerbey said:

With no one to teach you it’s a task, not impossible though. Have you got all the manuals? Also cleaning out the heads will help with auto threading from my experience. And I have never seen someone align the wire with out the jig, not saying it’s impossible though. But you may be able to make one yourself or speak to the manufactures directly about a refurbed one.

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I am fortunate to have three fairly decent manuals. There's a classroom training book with examples and tips, a big fat maintenance manual that's a little cryptic but infinitely better than nothing, and something like an operator's manual that's missing the table of contents and first chapter. I'm guessing that was just dozens of pages of safety warnings anyway so no big loss there. Although now that I think about it, I'd be happy to get a list of not-so-blatantly-obvious safety tips for the operator.

By "cleaning out the heads", do you mean anything more than taking off the top/bottom insulators and wire guides and blowing out the the crap with compressed air? I did this and it doesn't seem to help a lot.

As with many of the machines put in front of me, I don't believe this is supported by the manufacturer any longer. There are possibly some back channels, but nothing simple or straight forward.

greggv said:

I would expect you could make a squaring block like Sodick uses, and go from there? Approach it with a very low power setting, dry, and as soon as the wire hits the block, adjust your U or V to get an even spark across the entire face of your squaring block. (It should be hardened and ground square)

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Forgive my ignorance, but why is it important that it be hardened?

What does the end of the wire look like on your machine after automatic cut/trim? I'm trying to figure out whether this curve I have is normal or not.

Just because it isn’t supported by the manufacturer, doesn’t mean they won’t help you! And yer, try not to blow air in to the heads, take it apart clean it with solvents and dry each part then reassemble. The manuals maintenance section should give an insight in to properly doing stuff.

Luke.kerbey said:

Just because it isn’t supported by the manufacturer, doesn’t mean they won’t help you! And yer, try not to blow air in to the heads, take it apart clean it with solvents and dry each part then reassemble. The manuals maintenance section should give an insight in to properly doing stuff.

Click to expand...

Thanks for your insight, Luke. This thread doesn't seem to be grabbing much attention so I really do appreciate it.

As for compressed air, I actually meant just cleaning out the guides after taking them off the machine. Except for the lower arm/tube, there doesn't seem to be much else that comes apart and could be cleaned.

I was able to (mostly) successfully cut some 2" mild steel (1018 most likely) with the machine's "S-CTRL" (adaptive something-or-other) turned off and about 25% of the feed from the built in tech table. I was playing around with the settings to see how things change as I ramped it up but I still have a lot to learn. It's frustrating because it's taking at least 10-15 minutes to get the broken bits of wire all cleaned out and the wire rethreaded. Again, I hope that the new guides return the automatic threading to a functional state.