squarewave
10-12-2003, 08:33 AM
Has anyone out there converted a 4 axis Wire EDM?
My MItsubishi Wire EDM suffered a lightning strike a few weeks ago that took out several controller boards. The estimate from Mits to fix these 4 boards was over $8K. The cpu is a 8086, so it is 8 bit technology from the early 80's.
I am currently in the process of finding all of the interface points for the various controls (fluid, wire, machining, spark gap voltage, and the epack parameters) for a Camsoft conversion. I think I have a pretty good handle on what must be done, but I am not sure about controlling the UV axis yet.
For those of you unfamiliar with a wire machine, the lower wire guide is considered the xy axis and the upper head is considered the uv axis. For a given xy command, the two heads move together. To accomplish a taper cut, separate uv commands are given. Thus the uv is always relative to the xy. It is further complicated by the fact the uv moves are given at the z level of the top surface of the part, and the wire guide is actually about .25" above the part (the upper and lower wire guides are the pivot points of the wire). Thus the machine reads a uv move actually changes both the xy and the uv to pivot point z locations.
Also, the most common machining mode is automatically varying the feedrate to keep a constant spark gap voltage. I assume I would read the gap voltage with an analog input and put an equation that varies FEED in a timer.fil.
I think I can work my way through the math of these two problems, but I was just curious - has anyone else done this successfully?
My MItsubishi Wire EDM suffered a lightning strike a few weeks ago that took out several controller boards. The estimate from Mits to fix these 4 boards was over $8K. The cpu is a 8086, so it is 8 bit technology from the early 80's.
I am currently in the process of finding all of the interface points for the various controls (fluid, wire, machining, spark gap voltage, and the epack parameters) for a Camsoft conversion. I think I have a pretty good handle on what must be done, but I am not sure about controlling the UV axis yet.
For those of you unfamiliar with a wire machine, the lower wire guide is considered the xy axis and the upper head is considered the uv axis. For a given xy command, the two heads move together. To accomplish a taper cut, separate uv commands are given. Thus the uv is always relative to the xy. It is further complicated by the fact the uv moves are given at the z level of the top surface of the part, and the wire guide is actually about .25" above the part (the upper and lower wire guides are the pivot points of the wire). Thus the machine reads a uv move actually changes both the xy and the uv to pivot point z locations.
Also, the most common machining mode is automatically varying the feedrate to keep a constant spark gap voltage. I assume I would read the gap voltage with an analog input and put an equation that varies FEED in a timer.fil.
I think I can work my way through the math of these two problems, but I was just curious - has anyone else done this successfully?