Conductivity plate problems

We are having problems with rapid wear of the lower conductivity plate in our sodick A500. The maintenance graph says that I should get 60 hours out of it before i have to move it to a new section but after about 30 hours it has about a .5-1mm groove worn in it, and I'm pretty sure it is causing frequent wire breakages. I also removed the top conductivity plate and there was barely a mark where the wire was. What could be causing the lower plate to wear so badly? The dies have done about 2000 hours which is recommended replacement time in the book, could worn dies be the problem? Also what should I look for to tell me the dies are worn out? We are using a zinc coated high performance wire would this cause increased wear?

Check your cables and connections especially to the head. Sometimes the crimped on ring terminals rot off on the inside of the insulation over time. You should be able to strip back the cable a bit and crimp on new ones if necessary Also make sure your upper conductivity piece is making good contact; I know this may sound counter intuitive. I think your problem is electrical, all the power is going through the lower block.

Always make sure your conductivity pieces are tightened. I had a guy leave one loose one time and it melted a nice ugly spot into the lower block in a remarkably short amount of time.

I don't know what you mean when you say worn die, but if you mean the diamond or saphire wire guides, I usually check those with a pin gauge. If I get a thousandth over wire size I change it, my guides are 0.0003-. I suppose if I had some kind of fancy microscope I could measure it. It takes forever for me to wear mine out. Either way I don't think guides is your problem.

I have this same on my sodick ag600l. I was told that the upper conductivity plate will have very little wear as opposed to the lower because as the wire gets used its becomes almost like a Saw blade which runts the lower conductivity plate faster than the upper. Long story short nice clean rounded wire making contact on upper plate and jagged used wire running over lower plate.

Thank you for the reply's. I have checked the wires and they are all good. The conductivity plates are tight. I've done some more research and i think it might because we are doing a fair bit of roughing and the water in the table is getting pretty dirty and causing extra wear on the lower plate. I look like i just need to move the lower plate more often.