Gallery, Projects and General > Project Logs
Titivating a Wire EDM Machine
AdeV:
--- Quote from: awemawson on November 05, 2014, 12:22:58 PM ---If it conducts electricity it'll cut it. Speed will reduce with increased thickness - think in terms of 'area cut per minute'. They don't often turn up on ebay.
--- End quote ---
I'd be interested to see what it makes of graphite.... or diamond. If you could cut perfectly sized dead-nuts parallel graphite cylinders, you'd be mates for life for anyone building a Stirling engine...!
eBay is a code for eBay, Apex, Riley Surface World (yes, that's a real company), Peaker Pattinson, and a few others...
awemawson:
One of its main applications is to cut copper and graphite as electrodes for 'sinker' EDM machines, I have reams of tables of cutting 'conditions' for graphite :thumbup:
awemawson:
An advantage of a machine that plods on doing it's own thing is that you can get on with other things while it does :ddb:
Before I set the machine cutting another test this morning I removed its 'running hours' meter, which has been rather flaky in operation. So while it ploughed it's own furrow I dismantled it to try and find the cause.
It's a mechanical Omron 'Time Counter' model KTH-R running off 110v AC - I'd already identified an LCD possible replacement at a very modest price if it wasn't fixable but better to fix if possible. Construction is a simple plastic jacket surrounding the metal interior works, that is sprung over a couple of dimples to retain it. Pulling it apart it was pretty obvious what the issue was - the original lubrication on the gear train was very stiff and solid. Rigging a 110v supply to it, it only took a gentle spray of WD40 to loosen up the solid grease to a more suitable consistency for it to start working freely. A bit of a clean up and re-assembly, and as I type this it's been running for over an hour with no problems. It can be popped back in the machine when its finished it's current job.
awemawson:
At long last the bespoke bellows that I commissioned have arrived - in fairness slightly earlier than the six weeks I was quoted.
So they got fitted this afternoon - hopefully I won't now have to leave a folded towel down the side of the machine where they were missing :thumbup:
spuddevans:
Looking very smart there Andrew :thumbup: :thumbup:
Tim
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