How We Made A Wire EDM Machine At Home

DIY Wire EDM is finally a reality! This has been on our DIY CNC machine radar for quite some time, and finally we have done it. We added this attachment onto an old DIY CNC Machine. After all, it's an extremely rigid epoxy granite CNC machine with a perfectly fine X Y Z motion system. We hope that getting a good working Wire EDM machine will help us produce better tolerance cuts in metals for our DIY homemade shop.

While this was just our first round of prototyping, we will continue to work on this DIY Wire EDM machine and turn it into a proper homemade CNC EDM Machine.

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Check Out These Other Machines We Built:
We built a CNC Machine

We built a Wire EDM

We built an EDM Sinker

We built a Plastic Injection Machine

We built an Anodizing Setup

We built CNC Router

#CNC #machineshop #DIY #epoxy #mill #engineering #machine

[kobuscoetzee]

I have been running a few wire edm's at work for a few years including a big Fanuc Robocut 600.
Here is just a few surgestions .
1.To prevent wire snaps your are looking at a movement speed (speed of cut) of about 0.1-0.5mm per minute depending on what your are cutting and the thickness.
2. Speed up the speed of your wire (speed at wich the wire pass thru the cut, is being used) to 4-6meters per minutes. The faster the wire the cleaner and smoother the cut.
3. If your are using a large cap on your output power lines, back off on the size, this is scalpel not a broadsword like a sinker edm the initial large spark will snap the wire.
4. Current, from what I have seen you do not need more that 5amp on that wire, again scalpel not broadsword.
4.1 If I was cutting that round bar on the fanuc, typical setting would be tavel speed I would get 0.3mm per minute, wire speed of 8m/min, current 3amp. With a voltage of about 80v.
keep in mind the wire cut moves forward and back depending on the gap voltage reading, you cannot just set it at a speed and plouge into the material.
5. Try swappingthe polarity of the output line, it sounds stupid but is does matter.
I designed my own Small hole edm under the name Radnor Technologies a few years back and if I remember correctly I used - on the electrode and + on the work piece this results in a quick material removal rate but eats your electrode for breakfast. In your case with the wire that would be bad.
6. Remember when in doubt flush flush flush loose carbon can mess with your cut.

Here is just a few other surgestions not related to the wire snaps.
1. Filter your water else things goe pear shaped very quickly.
the 20 inch big blue spun polyprop filters used for home water systems works well.
Fit a 10 micron filter the 5 micron does not last very long. The fanuc has a hugh 5micron filter as standard. Aluminium will clog a filter like you will not believe.
2.Deionize the water if your want to cut for longer than a few minutes.
The waters optimal resistance should be 70 kilo ohm per cm2. Doin ght deionizing is easy, you buy the dionizing resin (small balls) from the same place that sells the filters, normally in a 25Kg bag.
It is in a bucket with a inlet and outlet.
Let the outlet drain into your tank and hook up a pump to the inlet to switch on when the resistanc is below 60K. This is a easy job for a Nano with a ADC and 2 probes on the water, we used 2 stainless rods with a surface area of 1cm2
3.The rewinder unless you want to try and reuse the wire... bad idea... ditch the roll winder just make a puller that pulls the wire and dumps it in a box, this is what the fanuc does. Some other brands chops the wire wich will be better since it takes less space.

Hope this helps, all and all great project I wish you the best of luck and look forward to the next video... subscribed 🙂

[Willam_J]

You used proper hardware, you soldered everything, and you didn’t use any hot glue. As an engineer, myself, this brought a tear to my eye. I’m so tired of people holding their projects together, with hot glue and a prayer. Then, they wonder why nothing works, or keeps falling apart. You, sir, have gained another subscriber. 👍😃

[ethanmye-rs]

It’s your spark generator. BAXEDM makes a modern one, but EDM has been around wwii and you can find some patents that basically use a big resistor for good current control. Most switching power supplies have poor “instant” current control, but A simple resistor should be smooth. You also need feedback between controller and current generator, water conductivity increases as you cut.

[MrGoodaches]

In the late 1970s I learned to operate one of the first Wire EDM machines in the US. It was a Elox 100 with 2 axis Fanuc NC that was commanded by paper tape with punched holes. This was so high tech at the time that our tool & die shop became a stop for VIP visits to our city. Wire EDM machines have advanced a very long way from the Elox 100.
Although many decades have permitted the concepts and components to become more normal I am blown away by the idea of an individual being able to DIY their own wire EDM machine. Very kewl and I'm impressed and envious of any of you that have the ability, resources and space to do this at home. Awesome.

[edmguru]

Wow! That’s an awesome wire machine build you’ve created there! Well done!
I’ve built solid sink EDM machines in the past which I find are pretty easy to build in comparison to this especially as my machine design is old school and doesn’t require any code to work etc.
I don’t know your power generator design but it does need to be different from a solid sink pulse EDM generator, it needs to be more like an RC design with a sine wave type output. This type of generator gives a superior surface finish but the electrode wear rate is very high which is not a problem on wire EDM as the electrode is constantly being replaced. You could try placing a low value capacitor across the output leads to emulate this more but you might need a generator redesign.
Also your wire feed rate is too slow it needs to be around 8m/min with a cutting speed of 3 or 4mm/min and your software needs to be able to pause and reverse the g code if there’s a short circuit etc which Mach3 can’t do, but I believe Linux CNC can and it’s free software.

[wilsonchin]

This brings me back a few years back when I was interning at a metalwork company where I was operating a wire EDM. It was boring as heck because the whole morning we would set up 1 or 2 plates and then we wait for them to cut finish in the next 3 days. I was setting up the parts too fast that the full time guys told me to slow down so that it will look I'm doing work. I find it really counter intuvtive. I wanted to learn more but they didn't let me because I'm only interning for 3 months.
What great memory that was.

[lxjmwoh]

It's pretty amazing how much more people can accomplish now that 3d printers and arduino boards are so popular/affordable. Kids these days dont realize how good they have it with all the technology at their fingertips... I wish all this stuff existed when I was a kid because I would be so many years ahead of where I am now.

[justinmoritz]

Dude, this is literally the most amazing project I’ve seen in the past year. And your CNC mill?!?! That thing looks seriously impressive.

Incredible engineering!

[dominik_meffert]

That looks impressive!
I'm also currently working on a wire EDM machine and think your project is very inspiring.
Thanks for sharing.

[KarlMiller]

This project greatly reduces the barriers to entry for the hobbyist.. Thank you and I will be anxiously awaiting your next video on this project.

[jbueno]

Beautiful work. I developed a wired Edm in my garage. After a lot of study I learned the fundamental concepts so that the wire does not break. The open and closed load time must be critically controlled for high cutting efficiency. I achieved 90% erosion on the part versus 10% erosion on the electrode or wire. The junction between the advance pulse and the cutting and loading time is the key point for perfect operation. On my channel there is a small video cutting with penetration electrode. When possible I will make some EDM Wire videos to maybe help friends who follow the same path. A hug and good projects broo.

[jtwarner]

I really like the content! It has enough information to explain what the thought behind the process is, good visuals, and some light humor. Can't wait to see this project evolve.

[baxedm]

I can see were you got your inspiration from, looks very familiar :-) I can give you a ton of advice if you are interested. There is a long list of improvements to be made on your current design before you can make any wire EDM cuts, and a very long list before you can make high speed efficient and accurate cuts. Feel free to contact me.

[max_eley]

The wire is snapping because of the lack of a real spark generator, bax edm makes one, but thats about it, spark generators are a serious technology and not really something you can buy off a shelf.

[russneff]

I am really impressed with your toy. I believe the current and feed rate are too high. I do not know your power supply frequency but if it is like straight DC voltage you probably want to back it way off to not exceed 1/4 amp (maybe 30-40 volts, this has some connection to the frequency of the power supply) and then drive forward really slowly. Our first machine was less than 30 mm per hour in 25 mm material. I believe the frequency was about 2000 HZ and the machine had a vibrator on the wire to help keep the wire from shorting. This was before adaptive control was available so you have to keep the feedrate below the shorting speed. The wire should never touch the workpiece but you should try to maintain a spark gap of about .025-.050 mm. Additionally if the wire is not held tightly it will bow, which will be evident when all your sharpe corners look washed out.... You can get other weirdness. S-shaped walls. Almost all the current machines are capable of backing up if they hit the workpiece and short out, turn power off, and will not reapply power until the short clears. (most macines have a short circuit sensor for that. They first thing I would suggest is to go to a v-style groove for your guides. Something hard and permanent would be preferred but you could cut a v-groove in a carbide pin. Or if you really clever maybe a carbide cutting tool. Ultimatley, something non-conductive and wear-resistant would be you best bet. Using your roller and small hole you are also; going to EDM your bearing, eventually it will not run round, and the small hole will eventually enlarge especially after soemtime in the water as the metal parts become part of the curcuit. Aslo as an asiide the small rollers are really hard on the wire. Most of the production machines don't have small diameter tight rollers because it puts a bend into teh wire. If you unroll five feet of wire it should go almost straight to the floor without any cbvious stress. If the wire tends to lean in a direction like it has been on the roll too long it can cause the s-shape along the wall of your cutting path. If you can finally circulate water and can pump it coaxially along the wire it will help flush the cut slot (but only after you have entered the material) and you can pick up a small amout of speed. Good luck.

[EFNG]

EDM Engineer here.

First of all, this is absolutely outstanding work.

Secondly, we call it dielectric fluid, not coolant

Thirdly, Wire EDM is much easier when feedback from the generator is used to control the feedrate. Fixed feedrates aren't very useful. I can't go into the feedback mechanism.

You also would benefit from top and bottom flushing to ensure the spark gap is kept free of debris.

[MakeSomething]

That was so fun! Looking forward to seeing the solution!

[Mavrik]

I almost have no idea what he's making, but I kept watching because the design and building process was so interesting.

[AdamS-ndhi]

I just search in google for if someone has made a hobby wire EDM machine and I see you just released this yesterday! take my sub

[mikebergman]

What kind of genius sorcery is this?.. Not the wire edm, that's easy. But the design.. My god man, Big Brain!