Page 27 - Fall 2024 EDM Today

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EDM is not a competitive process to milling. Often EDM is used along with milling to cut features that are too
detailed to produce with a rotating cutter. In plastic molds for example, tool shops will mill what they can, then use
EDM to produce the details. Figure 1 shows a typical plastic mold with deep ribs that are impractical to machine
with typical rotating cutters.

The Shift Towards Smaller Parts

Most manufacturing industries agree that product designs have become smaller and more complex over the last
few years. Designs include fi ner details and tighter tolerances in a smaller area. Sinker EDM operators report that
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they are more frequently asked to produce designs that other machining equipment cannot handle, such as thin
cross sections, sharp corners, small radii, complex angles, and fi ne fi nishes. This trend is refl ected across multiple
precision industries including consumer goods, automotive components, and medical devices.

Aerospace Projects
The aerospace industry is one of the most demand-
ing in terms of process control. NADCAP and many
OEM standards dictate rigid standards to assure
that jet engine components are produced with
high levels of consistency between parts. Entegris
POCO Materials is well suited to this market due to
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Entegris’ rigid quality control standards that assure
graphite materials will perform identically over the
long term.

Consumer Products

Even something as apparently simple as a plastic

cult to fabricate. That’s because manufacturers
are turning to more complex product designs as a
Figure 1 — Complex Bottle Cap bottle cap may have a unique design that’s diffi -
differentiation strategy for either brand recognition
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or to eliminate product waste in alignment with environmental efforts. Design changes to bottle caps and closures
require electrodes that are fabricated with more detail or grouped to produce a larger number of cavities. Figure 1
shows a typical example of a complex bottle cap with detail requiring precise machining.

Automotive

Wiring harness clips for
electrical connectors and other
smart technology components
are either becoming condensed
or designed with more intricate
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details. Speaker grills have
always been a common task
for EDM operators, who now
report that they are becoming
more compact both in overall
size and in the diameter of
their holes. Figure 2 shows a
graphite electrode used to
produce speaker grill molds.
The detail required makes it
essential to select graphite
materials that can accurately
reproduce the crisp geometry Figure 2 — Speaker Grill Electrode
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that the OEMs demand.

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EDM Today, Fall 2024 Issue