We recently finished the move of the First Wire EDM CNC to dad’s workshop, in preparation for commissioning this awesome piece of equipment there. I am yet to fully understand the range of capabilities offered by this machine, but at the top of the list is 480x360x300 mm material work area, resolution to 0.02mm, and surface finish on superfine mode down to 5 microns. In addition to CNC control in X and Y, it can also offset the top of the wire to cut tapers cones etc, I am still attempting to work out what angle that means, as I believe it is dependant on the gap between top and bottom wire feeders.
This machine uses a re-spooling CroMoly Wire, which circulates back and forth on the feed drum, so the running costs should be quite reasonable, unlike machines which constantly feed one way only.
There are some downsides. It does not “auto start” so you are unable to punch start holes into material, instead needing to manuallly wire to each opening for internal cuts. This is a small drawback given the overall capability of the machine.
In this video, I am showing the vertical alignment tool. This is used to set the initial wire offset to be perpendicular to the work, by the means of a precision granite block with two metal contacts, perfectly aligned so that the wire touching both can only occur when the wire is perfectly vertical, and is indicated by the LEDs on the alignment block
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