EDM Electrode

[ostie01]

HI,

 

Soon, will have to machine some EDM electrodes and I know nothing about it, Dimension, How to in general.

 

Is there some good tutorial about it, I'm using Solidworks and Mastercam X4.

 

Is the electrode the same shape than hole or any others form in the mold.

 

Thanks for any help.

 

Jeff

[mchin-pilot]

Depends upon your "CAD-Modeling" plus the "Mold- Making" skills you should be able to extract the Electrode shape that may fullfill the Cavity Shape.

 

Yes it is the same shape as Cavity (sometimes it is not 1 piece but may be broken into few number of electrodes with necessary overlap)

 

During machining, overmachine the electrodes to accomodate the spark gap.

 

Depends on your EDM skills, you may need :-

1 Finisher Electrode

Or

1 Finisher + 1 Rougher

Or

1 Finisher + 1 Medium +1 Rougher

 

I Dont think if there is some tutorial about it.

 

Have Fun!!

[Josh T™]

Mold Plus is a great to for designing Trodes. I did a demo and was really impressed. We don't do enough trode design to warrant spending the $ for it so I do my designs in ProEngineer.

 

Depending on the accuracy you need, the spark gap is critical. Over machining usually works but sometimes you run into issues especially on surface machining with negative stock on drive surfs. Be very careful when selecting check surfs.

 

HTH

Josh

[Kevangel]

if your doing roughers and finishers make sure you don't get them mixed up in the machining process, i.e a rougher has one feature made to finisher diminsions so it burns away too much metal in the cavity for that feature....it happens..

[MotorCityMinion]

I've had a chance to mess with both the Moldplus and Electrodeworks. IMO, Electrodeworks is much easier to use than Moldplus. Being a Solidworks plug in, you start an assembly and away you go. Nice set-up sheets for the EDM guys as well. I'll swear you'll be designing your first electrodes in under a 3 hours as a novice. Under 10 minutes when you get to know it. It comes with decent tutorials as well.

 

Link: http://www.rnbusa.com/electrodeworks.htm

 

The upside to the Moldplus is that most MC resellers offer that app as well and can provide training.

 

Rickster is the guy to talk to about Moldplus.

[ostie01]

Thanks guys, will look at your suggestions, electrodeworks look like to be a great add-on.

 

Jeff

[toddm]

we use orbits when burning... so we dont need any roughers....spherical orbits.

[Guest]

Hope he didn't wait 5 1/2 years for an answer  

 

Might want to check the dates, lol

[toddm]

had to think long time for a good response....