MadModder

Another 'blast from the past' - steaming up the
wire EDM machine the other day and realising what a pain wire threading is using the ruby hole guides (0.25 mm wire to be threaded through 0.255 mm hole upside down in an invisible place) I decided to knuckle down and sort out the fitting for these guides.

As far as I can tell the bits I have are mechanically complete but are missing the removable half of the de-ionised water fittings. They probably stayed on the scrap machine when these used Vee guides were obtained. So the task is to 3D print them.

So far I think I've got the lower guide sorted and a 99% fill version is printing as I type - I've been using 13% fill ones for prototypes getting the shape right.

A few hurdles along the way: Not used Fusion 360 for several years so it insisted on being updated - still not an intuitive program (for me at least). Eventually got what I thought was right, exported it to the Cetus 3D printer and in the process of trying to get is sat on the right plane to avoid printing loads of scaffolding ended up printing a mirror image  Still as I say final version now printing in Pet-G.

Will start modelling the upper nozzle surround over the weekend hopefully.

Are two headed coin?s making a comeback?

Rumour has it that a keffiyeh rather than a file is the easiest way out of jail these days

And you will of course send me a cake with an enclosed file to my new abode in Wormwood Scrubs !

Russell yes I did consider that but the clamping set up gets a bit hairy !

Well it's been an awfully long time but I've got to play with the Wire EDM machine over the last few days.

Grand daughter has just gone off to University and for some strange reason asked if 'any of those machines in your workshop could cut a penny in two' Well not my place to reason why so initially I just used a pair of stout tin snips with one arm clamped in the vice. Yes it cut, but one half shot off into the deep recesses of the workshop and the other was rather distorted.

So I thought - really this is a job for the Fanuc Tapecut wire EDM machine. I've not used it for literally several years but lets see what happens. Powered up a treat, even had several programs still stored in its bubble memory, but after a few power on / offs it reported a memory fault requiring a wipe of the contents. No matter I need to load a simple cut off program anyway.

Program generated in Featurecam - now how the devil does the load sequence work  Manual was rather vague - I'd done it many times before but that was about five years ago.

In the end to get the job done I hand keyed it in at the control panel and OK we have two halves of a penny as requested. But that's NOT good enough - so I spent absolutely ages going round the houses, to find eventually that the USB to multiple Com port adapter on my workshop PC at some time over the years had reconfigured itself so what was Com3 had become Com4 and vice-versa. OK sort that out and hoo ray I can upload code - it only took three days to sort it out!

Right - lets get a bit more adventurous and cut coins with curved lines - so I did !



Here is a rather long and boring video of cutting in process

https://youtu.be/bkKTLsISxFY