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Micro edm

White Lightning

Aluminum
Joined
Jan 21, 2018
Lately we have been doing a lot of small spark gap burning .0005 to .002 per side. Our Charmilles edms have treated us well but we need add a new sinker that would specialize in burning .010 thousands wide detail up to .200 deep holding extremely tight tolerances. Just wondering who has the best machines out there for this? It started as a prototype that has blown into a full production line.



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Hi,

I used a new series charmilles form 30, it came with a whole bunch of erosion types such as micro EDM, standard EDM, large area EDM, hole drilling etc. When applied correctly they all worked pretty good.
The big table was great for clamping several work pieces at once so good for production stuff.
 
Hi White Lightning:
I have a particular soft spot in my heart for a Makino, although I've never run one and know them only by reputation.
They are the brand that most often comes up when the call is for exquisite precision and tiny burns together.

Hopefully Brian Pfluger from Makino chimes in here; he's a great resource for information and very generous with his expertise.
Contact him directly at Makino if he doesn't respond here.

If you get one I will be jealous as Hell!

Cheers

Marcus
Implant Mechanix • Design & Innovation > HOME
Vancouver Wire EDM -- Wire EDM Machining
 
Thanks Markus. I'm definitely a makino guy. I run an older S-56 and a F-5 daily. While mainly a mold shop we seem to do a fair amount of precision medical parts. They are machined on a Roku 658. Extreamly small cutters and drills. Some of the parts have 160 .008 dia holes .060 deep with 2 to 3 set ups in the wire then onto the burner. This new project has really grown. We've added 2 new roku's. A 658 ll recieved last week and a new Vision 300 coming in around 6 months. Now we are adding a new sinker mainly for these small parts. Is anyone running a newer Mitsubishi sinker?

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Hi again White Lightning:
There is a fellow poster on PM with the online name "William Ward" who makes molds for orthodontic brackets, and started a thread way back when in which he complained in part of the limitations of the Mits sinker he was using for the super tiny burns he was trying to accomplish.
Apparently it was incapable of managing the very low spark energies he was working with.
It did not sound like a criticism of the machine so much as a recognition of its limitations.

Maybe he'll chime in here and enlighten us further.

Cheers

Marcus
Implant Mechanix • Design & Innovation > HOME
Vancouver Wire EDM -- Wire EDM Machining
 
Hi White Lightning:
I have a particular soft spot in my heart for a Makino, although I've never run one and know them only by reputation.
They are the brand that most often comes up when the call is for exquisite precision and tiny burns together.

Hopefully Brian Pfluger from Makino chimes in here; he's a great resource for information and very generous with his expertise.
Contact him directly at Makino if he doesn't respond here.

If you get one I will be jealous as Hell!

Cheers

Marcus
Implant Mechanix • Design & Innovation > HOME
Vancouver Wire EDM -- Wire EDM Machining

I had my eye on a Makino EDAC-1/EDFH-1 for some future projects. I think either of these machines would fit the bill for the OP.

The EDFH-1 adds hole popping capability to their highest precision sinker. Definitely a drool-worthy machine.
 
Thanks for the shout Marcus. I don't have the Makino I've been lusting after yet but the EA12E Mitsubishi we have now is about 15 years old and is starting to show its age.
Like Marcus said it is not designed for the small overburns that you are talking about. The smallest value that it will accept is .0015" per side with a face area of .01 sq. in. which is significantly larger than the .0001 sq.in. that I need all the time. For now I just have to get creative with editing the settings that it creates. Even at that I still need a .01 dia. electrode to consistently make a .015 dia. hole. So obviously that is more than .0015 per side but it is what it is.
It has taken me a while to wrap my head around all of this but the burn area is at least as important as the amount of overburn. All of my cavity electrodes are under .05 sq. in. and the .0015 overburn is as much as I can go with out losing details.

I don't know anything about the new Mits machines and their controls so I don't know if there is anything in the line now that would work on features of this size. And I'm not wild about their application support, it's not horrible but it's not the easiest to deal with either.

I would be interested to know what you find from either Makino or Mitsubishi. We are kind of a Mits shop as far as EDM goes, 3 Wires and the Sinker. But we also have a Makino V22 that I use for electrode fabrication and it is a sweet machine, so I would seriously look at their EDM offerings when the time comes.
 
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A little update for those interested. We are getting quotes from Makino, Mitsubishi, and Charmilles . Also setting up test burns with each company. Even though we have 3 sinkers, 2 wires and a cnc and manual hole popper from Charmilles . My boss is open for the best new machine to handle the micro work we have been drawn to. Last project had rib details. 005 thick and over .120 deep. Unfortunately with the 3-d radius details we couldn't split it with inserts. Hopefully a new sinker will help when it goes from a prototype tool to a 8 cavity. Having an owner that is willing to invest in technology is huge for an employee. I'll post some picks later if it's ok with our customers.

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