Build Thread- Anyone know anything about ECM ?

[cncjunky]

Hey everybody I know this is nothing new, but I would like to learn more about this. It's ECM which stands for electro chemical machining. What it basically is, is electroplating in reverse. What your doing is taking salted water to start and running the current in reverse, so your turning solid metal on the peice into dissolved ions in the saltwater. Does anyone have any knowledge on this process? I know the basic idea of how it works, but does anyone know a way of getting a medium - good result from a home brew ECM? Or ideas on making a ECM with current control, how too type deal ?

[Bubba]

Checkout: http://www.indoor.flyer.co.uk/ecm.htm as he has done some work in this area.

[cncjunky]

Originally Posted by Bubba Checkout: http://www.indoor.flyer.co.uk/ecm.htm as he has done some work in this area.

Thanks again Bubba, this website has about the same amount of info that I got out of the popular science magazine. What I'm not seing is information on how to control the amount of current. I don't know if just a battery charger would work, one with multipple settings would put out fair-medium results or not. I from what I've read the filtering systems in both the edm and ecm are a very crucial part of the whole system. I was wondering if anyone on here has put any time into this method of machining on the home built level. I see that the prices for these machines are like 50,000lbs. so thats a healthy chunk of U.S. dough. This is'nt something I'd use for much other than obviously hard materials and some deep holes, maybe. How rediculous is the power consumption of the ecm and edm ?

[beege]

Did a search with "ECM electro-chemical machining"

Went to a wiki, then to this:

http://www.eod.gvsu.edu/eod/manufact/manufact-281.html

then here:

http://electrochem.cwru.edu/encycl/a...-machining.htm

Any help?

Also, look for "Everite"

http://www.everite.net/

[cncjunky]

Thanks beege, I google it and found some sites, but did'nt come accross this
http://electrochem.cwru.edu/encycl/a...-machining.htm
That was a very interesting site. It had what I'm looking for.
I don't know how feasable, or should I say how much time and if it would even be worth my while to put all the time into putting together a system like that. From what I seen on the everite website, which was no prices, I know that buying a unit would be not something I'd be interested in doing, unless the price was right of coarse. No doubt about it, it would definately take alot of experimenting to get it right.