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| Titivating a Wire EDM Machine |
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| awemawson:
This mornings job was to refresh my memory as to how the two wire guides are set to be vertical. Fortunately the book of words 'sort of' covers it - however their procedure only covers one axis (which they don't point out) so it needs repeating with the jig (see later) in two places. However firstly I had to re-thread the wire - it's always been a pain to thread but today I developed a couple of techniques that do help somewhat. Firstly, to get the wire through the sliding seals without concertinering it into a zig zag I used a length of thin nylon tube. Slide wire down tube, poke tube through seal into working area of machine, pull off tube. Simple and easy. Secondly getting a 0.25 mm wire threaded into a hole in a sapphire that is only microns bigger - it's fun! However if instead of cutting the wire with (very sharp) cutters, you break it. It must neck down before snapping and produce a tapered end that threads in far more easily . :ddb: It does however dig into your fingers somewhat ! I presume that cutters must actually distort the wire into a chisel shape that flares a bit at the edges. |
| awemawson:
Now fortunately my machine came with the 'verticality jig' so it was just a case of (once that bally wire was threaded) plonking the jig onto the holding frame, adjusting the X & Y position so that the wire glances the jig, then tweaking U & V to get the same degree of light flickering on the top lamp as is displayed on the lower one. Once this is done, the U & V co-ordinates are used as offsets internally so that this position is regarded as zero for them and the wire is vertical. |
| awemawson:
So of course in my excitement at getting close to finishing I broke my good resolution not to water it up before painting - had to try it out ! So as I type this it is cutting out a 20 mm square in a bit of 1/4" mild steel hot rolled plate just as a test. It's so far cut a length of 23 mm in 15 minutes - nothing optimised so far - just playing. It's not the most photogenic process - the covers and water gets in the way but here are a couple of pictures - the first through the covers, and the second with the splash covers off (briefly). Not the best but hard to get in there to take them ! |
| awemawson:
So 82 minutes after starting the cut we have cut 85 mm of cut length, and amazingly the part has come out pretty well bang on target size :ddb: No doubt cutting speed can be increased by tweaking, but by contrast with how it was before I retro-fitted the lower wire contact it's quite fast. I previously had to slow it down to avoid wire breaks - this time none :thumbup: For the same thickness material (1/4" it would have cut pretty much the same rate independent of how hard it was. Note the use of a rare earth magnet to stop the cut off part sagging and fouling the wire as the cut finished. Amazing amount of debris produced from a small cut. It's mostly very fine steel particles, but there will be brass from the wire mixed in. I may experiment with a magnetic particle separator to save the main filter some work. I need now to get some time in playing with it to learn to use it 'comfortably' rather than always being on the edge of my seat ! |
| awemawson:
--- Quote from: AdeV on October 18, 2014, 06:10:07 AM ---What expansion port(s) do you have in those SFF machines? If they'll take PCI cards, you can fit one (or two) of these: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261083309079 And then you've got 4-6 serial ports (including the 2 on the machine).... --- End quote --- I'll certainly explore that suggestion Ade - thanks |
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