WEDM Question

[Reko]

I am not a WEDM guy... our wire guy ask me to ask this question... so if I get the terminology wrong, please understand.

Normally, when we WEDM a hole, the rough pass and all three skim passes start at 12 o'clock... which has the effect of leaving a mark at 12 o'clock... but that mark is a problem on extremely tight tolerance holes.

When we WEDM an extremely tight tolerance hole, we always manually edit the code to change the quadrant start point on each pass.

For example, the rough pass starts at 12 o'clock, skim pass 1 starts at 9 o'clock, skim pass 2 starts at 6 o'clock, and skim pass 3 starts at 3 o'clock.

This works well because the final pass is at the lowest heat setting... it leaves a very small mark at the final 3 o'clock quadrant, while wiping out the marks at the other three previous quadrants.

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So... question...

Our WEDM guy was told another CAD system could change the start point automatically... so he was wondering if Mastercam had an option like this.

Is there a setting to get Mastercam Wire to take 4 passes on a hole, and have each pass start at a different quadrant automatically?

Thank you in advance!

[Shazam/TPP]

besides having four different operations to call out the start points, nope. do you curl in/out your approach or do you feed straight in?

[JParis]

I don't do a ton of wire work here but I wonder if it's not more the power settings might be more of an issue.

We do A LOT of WEDM as we have a moldshop in house and I don't recall them ever fighting with this kind of issue....

[Dan_AKA_ROY23]

DM Del...

[Reko]

Thanks for the ideas guys.

I got a response from Dan Harris on the main Mastercam forum and he logged it as a request.

We only manually change the program on tight tolerance holes, and get very good results... 1 rough pass and 3 skims.

In this case, we are holding .0002" and a 16 micro-finish.

Thanks again.

Here is Dan's response from the Mastercam Forum.

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Reko,

Unfortunately, there isn't a way for Mastercam to automatically do this.  I did log this in our system.  The request number is R-25474.

The suggestion DWilson4 has should work fine, but as they said, it isn't automatic.

Thanks for the suggestion!  Have a great day!


Dan Harris | Quality Control |
CNC Software, Inc. | 671 Old Post Road | Tolland, CT 06084 | USA
Phone: 860.875.5006 | Fax: 860.872.1565 | http://www.mastercam.com">www.mastercam.com

[Del.]

Esprit gives you option to rotate entry by quadrant. I also put a stop sometimes like .020 before slug drops to force me to be there to put magnet on slug or to stop power when I see voltage drop to keep slug from gouging hole.  Quadrant is best practice

[Reko]

Esprit gives you option to rotate entry by quadrant. I also put a stop sometimes like .020 before slug drops to force me to be there to put magnet on slug or to stop power when I see voltage drop to keep slug from gouging hole.  Quadrant is best practice

Yes... Esprit is the system the Makino tech uses.

Thanks Del.

[Del.]

Then you shouldn't have to edit the code then.

I love Esprit.

[Reko]

Then you shouldn't have to edit the code then.

I love Esprit.

Sorry, I didn't make myself clear.
The Makino tech... who works for Makino... told us about the quadrant technique.
Our WEDM guy has been doing this for several years... but is tired of manually editing the code.
He asked me to ask the question about Mastercam having an option to accomplish this.
We use Mastercam, which currently, doesn't have this option.

Thanks for your help Del.

[Shazam/TPP]

you can do a glue stop now in mastercam, depending on hole size, thickness of part, i vary from .05-.10, pause it then cut it off and remove slug and the run the rest of the program. if it's a tight hole i will reverse every cut and overlap it by .02 which can be done within mastercam. (it is somewhat cumbersome but once you have it configured it will work)

** never worked with espirit but have heard a lot of good things for wire**

[Dan_AKA_ROY23]

Never programmed with Wire (or Lathe, for that matter).

I have designed and sent out many extrusion dies over the years for wire EDM work. Usually good on the 1st or 2nd attempt, on rarer occasions a 3rd attempt. Design in MC Mill and save as a DWG file. 4 1/2" diameter circular die with molding design centered.

Extrusion die designing is weird. A square comes out as a circle (cylinder shaped) To get a square molding, you need four inverted arcs on each of the 4 sides. Our dies are more complex shapes, so it takes a lot of experience to get it to look right. Our GM and extrusion manager are the experts on that. I design it the way they want it.

[Reko]

Never programmed with Wire (or Lathe, for that matter).

I have designed and sent out many extrusion dies over the years for wire EDM work. Usually good on the 1st or 2nd attempt, on rarer occasions a 3rd attempt. Design in MC Mill and save as a DWG file. 4 1/2" diameter circular die with molding design centered.

Extrusion die designing is weird. A square comes out as a circle (cylinder shaped) To get a square molding, you need four inverted arcs on each of the 4 sides. Our dies are more complex shapes, so it takes a lot of experience to get it to look right. Our GM and extrusion manager are the experts on that. I design it the way they want it.

I am not a WEDM or ram EDM guy either.
The people I work with that are, typically hit me up to get their questions answered.
Mastercam has several great communities that always help me get good solutions!
Now this forum looks to be another great resource.