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Hey everybody, forgive me for the lack of posts recently. We’ve been busy helping customers with a few challenging applications.

Today I wanted to share a couple of success stories I received from customers using the PICO wire guide system.
 
The customer was using a U32j with PICO to thread two series of holes in a die plate. The die plate contained a total of 836 holes, half of them were 0.012", and half were 0.015" in diameter. The wire this customer used was 0.006" brass. To the pleasant surprise of this customer, the machine correctly threaded 835 of the 836 holes.
 
Many customers have had great success with the PICO guides in several different applications, including holes smaller than 0.020" diameter, and/or with pitch locations of less than 0.060" center-to-center. Another customer is actually automatically threading through a series of holes in a stack of parts with separation between each part in the stack. The part stack, including the spaces, is about 1-1/2 inches tall.
 
Many of these success stories have come from applications used in medical and aerospace parts manufacturing. If you’re using Makino’s new PICO system and want to share your experience, email me at jeff.kiszonas@makino.com. We’d love to hear from you!

As you may or may not know, I presented a webinar on www.makino.com last July concerning the effects of the EDM process on surface integrity of titanium.  The data and photo micrographs were supplied courtesy of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics.  Based on the test results that LMA provided to Makino, we decided to do some of our own testing.  These tests included 1, 2, and 3 pass machining on aluminum, stainless steel, and titanium, with brass and coated wires.  Metallurgical tests performed included recast layer and HAZ thickness, micro-cracking, and micro hardness of the various samples.  The results we saw were pretty amazing!  Check it out for yourself here. 

Part of the reason HEAT is so effective is due to the WIZARD technology already built into Makino Wire EDMs. Here's an explaination of what that is:

BellyWIZARD: Improves part straightness thru adaptive and mechanical adaptive controls…this technology was originally developed and is part of our standard machining technology library for “optimum” flush conditions (High Speed and Precision settings). It has been incorporated into the HEAT technology and is a critical part of machining straighter parts.

PowerWIZARD: Improves and stabilizes the machining power to prevent wire breaks and to help improve accuracies. For the HEAT technology, this adaptive control has been set to be more sensitive, so that this technology will be more reactive to changes in both flushing and material thickness changes.

CornerWIZARD: Improves the geometric shaped and corner tolerance of the work piece. For HEAT technology, this adaptive control has been modified to accommodate the increases in both machining speed and flushing pressure.

FlushingWIZARD: This includes the two independently monitored and adaptive flush pumps that are each dedicated to the upper and lower machining heads. Each pump will sense and adapt to changes in “flushing dynamics” of the cut more quickly than any of our competitors (our competition only uses one pump), and this aids in maintaining machining speed as well as to prevent wire breaks. For HEAT technology, the flushing pressure has been greatly increased, which is a key factor in reducing cycle time.

The general accuracy rating for HEAT at 4.0” tall is:

Accuracy:
±0.0002” (±5µm)

Straightness:
0.0002” (5µm) total – T.I.R.