Wire EDM

Why

PCD erodes slowly, so a shop needs to see what the week holds before it promises a date.

How

Install the PCD and diamond tooling preset and open Wire EDM from the Machinist switcher.

The five views

Shop, Parts, Orders, Erode and Setup. The toolbar counts parts waiting to be eroded and disc stock lines below threshold.

Parts

A part is a profile to erode, from a designed product, a DXF path or entered dimensions. It carries the material and the layer it is cut from, which the time model needs.

Orders and the queue

An erode order collects profiles and quantities for one customer. In Erode, tick the waiting lines, pick a machine and choose Queue the erode run: the run carries a modelled wire time from the erosion chart and raises its job. A line the chart cannot cover has no time and says so, and a run with such a line carries no total rather than a partial one.

Stock

PCD discs and carbide blanks are stock lines with their real dimensions. Completing a run books them out; a run that uses more than is held writes a shortfall line rather than stopping at zero.

The erosion chart

Setup holds the modelled wire feed per diamond layer plus the start and thread time. These are starting values to calibrate against your own machine. The estimate abstains beyond the thickest charted layer.

Where the work comes from

A designed product with connected stock raises a queued erode order when an order is created for it, so a PCD saw blade sold through a quote arrives as profiles to erode. See rates, stock and the machine bridge.