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electrodes?


Clamper Todd
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surface cut it using -.008 leave stock on your drive surfaces,as long as you use all surface toolpaths with -.008 leave stock on your finish passes everything is relitive,if your part is completly 3d with no flat to pick up on you can make a pick-up trode.

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Is it possible for you to cut the whole trode finish using a countour,then parralle,or maybe just a constant scallop,that is a pretty small trode,it will keep all your depths relative to each other.They will not change.Or is there some reason why you dont want to machine the flats with overburn?

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I would do as chico said, lie about the

cutter size...this works great if your

edm will do a spherical burn...I am used

to chramilles and this works great, no modifying

geometry...I don't like the just leave -.008

method since if you cut the whole profile it

pushes your z down your overburn...way around

that is to shift everthing + in z to compensate..

only downfall about adjusting cutter size and

doing a spherical burn is that all corners are

radiused whatever your overburn is. Hope this

helps a little.

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I ve been cutting trodes for close to 9 years,lieing about the dia. to me is old school,I had to do that back in the day with smartcam,why lie if you dont need to it causes grief in the long run,cutting surfaces to negative stock is the best way to go.I do lie in some cases,like some sharp corners,and then i comp my z in my fixture offset,but its rare that mixin it up with 2d

and 3d cuts I have to resort to that.MC has numerous ways to do everything but try to keep

even the complex stuff as simple as possible.I would 99.9% gaurentee once you start cutting trodes using the right dia. you will never go back to lying.Everything stays relative to each other,nothing bad should happen.Give it a try.Most of my trodes are complex,large,and alot of overburn,I also run the EDM dept,so If it was wrong I would know.Just some opinions.

I'll shut up now. biggrin.gif

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I agree with MOLD100. I've been a user since version 3 and am very familiar with the old cutter size manipulation technique. The newer and better way is negative stock with 3D surface machining paths. If you have version 8 or 9 you can use negative stock on 2D paths with independent control of XY vs. Z undersize.

 

Let the computer do the thinking whenever possible.

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I guess all I was getting at was that I try

to avoid having to do an offset on the machine,

to me that is one less step, would be fine if

I was cutting trode buy why put in that variable.

Also we tried that method on a shutoff electrode

say .200 in width with .005/side overburn, finished dim. should be .1900 and did not come

out...offset the geometry and trode came out fine, we found that we did not get correct size by doing the negative offset,plus say you have 50

different trodes for a job and cut one using that method you have a different z offset for your burner, I myself like having them all the same if possible.

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There are no offset variables,surface cutting doesnt care about cutter size,just if there is a radius on the tool when going to negative stock.If your trode didnt come out right,AND it was programmed correctly then I would guesstimate something else was wrong.

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Mold 100,

 

I am on board. Didn't realize negative stock option was now allowed. I originally tried negative stock option when I was running 7.2 and it wasn't allowed. Haven't tried it since. Learn something new everyday. This forum rocks.

 

Chico

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The problem most people have when using negative stock is when it is necessary to hold a depth relative to an existing surface. In this case it is necessary to shift the Z work datum at the mill up by the undersize amount. This will make everything work out.

 

I avoid this situation by cutting ALL surfaces on the mill in one setup - even if it means doing extra cutting. The accuracy is always better (relative depths held to 0.0001)

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Thanks Scott,glad to help,this is where my most obvious expierience is.(electrode design and manufacturing).

 

ngkim,yes weve covered this but you can use 2d paths to pick out some areas,or if necessary make 2 versions of electrodes,this sometimes is alot more efficient than trying

to do really complicated pickouts.Alot depends on overburn,majority of what I cut:Under 1 in.

square .005-.007per side, 1"to4".008-.012, 4"-6".012-.018,above 6" sq.up to .03 per side on a roughing trode,So I run into alot difficult cituations,but I still pull through,and very seldom have to lie about the cutter.

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