Charmilles 300 using Zinc coated wire problem

[rtuls35]

Hi all,
I've been using the Deltacut 900 and 500 wire for a few weeks now trying to get my Charmilles 300 to cut well with these wires. I've been told these are much quicker than the SW-25X I've been using for many years.
Although I'm finding on my rough cut I have to drop my FF to like 50 or 60.
I use LS 25 tec on 900 and bump my WB up .2 and it still breaks frequently.
I use LS 25 tec on 500 and doesn't break as much but still have problems.
ANY advice out there? Also looking where to get LT25 Tec files.

[kip0569]

rtuls35,

Deltacut 900 and 500 are zinc "coated" wires. The key word being "coated".

This wire has no chance of cutting faster than SW25X wire.

If someone sold you this wire based on it cutting faster than SW25X they were either not knowledgable about edm wire or they were dishonest.

SW25X wire is a copper core with a "zinc rich" layer on the outside. Depending upon who you ask the zinc rich layer is said to be a bit more than .001" in thickness. The conductivity of this wire is 80 % IACS. (80% of unalloyed copper)

Deltacut 900 & 500, being "zinc coated" wires are a 65/35 brass alloy core with a coating of pure zinc. This coating, again depending on who you ask, is commonly said to be "a few tenths" thick. The conductivity of Deltacut wire is 20 % IACS for 900 and 22 % IACS for 500.

The lower conductivity of the Deltacut wires along with the minimal amount of zinc coating that it has leaves you with a wire that is a little faster than plain brass wire but not nearly as fast as SW25X wire.

The only use that I have personally found for wires such as Deltacut is for cutting carbide. It also can be useful for applications that require a better surface finish.

You might give SW-A tec for the 900 and SW-S tec for the 500 if you have those technologies available.

I can send you LT25 tec if you want and I may have the SW-A and SW-S if you want to try them. PM me with an e-mail address if you want to try any of these.

Good luck!

Dale