Watch High Energy Applied Technology (HEAT) Makino demonstrates the latest techniques and technologies in High Energy Applied Technology (HEAT). HEAT smokes the Wire EDM competition in poor flushing conditions, cutting parts 35% to 50% faster while holding tolerances of form and straightness to .0002" with one roughing pass.
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As I stated at the beginning I would like to introduce you to one of our customers, Mr. Tom Frick. We have recently added HEAT to his machine. I would like him to tell some of his experiences.

TOM FRICK: My name is Tom Frick, I'm the owner of Intricate EDM in Columbia, Pennsylvania. I purchased a Makino SP-43 in April and I had the HEAT technology installed on the machine in July. I got this HEAT technology and naturally like anybody else you don't believe it until you use it. I got this certain job that you'll see the pictures of. It's a cast starlite part, which I believe starlite is stainless steel. Very poor flushing conditions as you can see. It's typical job shop environment. You grab a piece of steel just to make a fixture that fixture just happens to be made of cold raw steel just lying right on the table half inch thick. You can see in the picture here that all I did was cut a square out of it but what you don't see is how I started. I started with a through hole with a counter boar top and bottom which is very poor flushing conditions plus my half inch thick fixture and I can't get the head right down on top of the part because the clamp is in the way. You naturally in a job shop environment you want to try and do as many as possible. As you can see we can get nine on there. The power that's on it was a plus or minus a thousandths.

With this HEAT technology we were able to achieve six tenths straightness on it and six tenth part tolerance. The technology here is using, it's using straight brass wire no special coated wires in this case with standard technology and we were cutting, our cutting speed was roughly seventy, seventy five thousandths per minutes. With the HEAT I'm holding the machine back at a hundred and forty-thousandths per minute, which is a hundred percent increase. You know a cast part, anybody does cast parts you know that you could have voids in the casting. The casting moves because it's, there is stress in the casting and all the EDM process is doing is relieving the stress. We are not really seeing any deviation or anything in the, by using the HEAT technology we are not getting, we are not experiencing breakage of wire which you normally would. Part moving yes the part moves some but we are not pinching the wire having problems in that respect. You know the HEAT technology with a job shop environment you never know what's going to be coming in the door next, as Nick had previously stated and in this case as you can see it's just a thrown together fixture, it works typical job shop and you know you don't know. Parts there is no way to hold this part other than that, it's not round and it's not square. You can't hold it in any vise. You have to fixture it somehow and this is how we came up with a fixture.

NICK CASBAR: Is this typical of, what kind of percentage of work that you do now is like this Tom, is poor flushing?

TOM FRICK: Poor flushing, probably about forty/fifty percent. Again you don't know what's going to come in the door you know and naturally you're not going to turn it away.

NICK CASBAR: Yeah you know it's interesting the claims of some of the manufacturers and you know with what kind of diameters they use with their high cutting speed. In your experience have you ever purchased a machine as a result of you know the claims of you using fourteen thousandths wire, is that real world thirteen thousandths wire? Would you buy a machine or purchase one for your facility with that kind of criteria?

TOM FRICK: Well try and get fourteen thousandth wire to begin with. You know ten thousandths is the standard, twelve thousandths is the standard for the industry for everybody's machine. Even these manufacturer's that have to use the thirteen or fourteen thousandths wire to obtain the speeds that I'm seeing with this HEAT technology but I'm doing it with ten thousandths wire. Now I'm getting how many feet or yards are on a ten thousandth spool versus a fourteen thousandths or a twelve thousandths or a thirteen thousandths spool and you know I'm probably getting double the amount of wire on a ten thousandths than I am on a fourteen thousandths.

NICK CASBAR: Couldn't have said it better myself. That's why I brought it up where what Makino is trying to do is to develop a real world technology and you know of course some of the claims that we made to you in the beginning you know a couple of comments from you is, I got to see it to believe it and you know one of the greatest parts of my job is to drive down the road and get a call from Tom Frick and just to thank us to put this technology on your machine. I remember the day when you did that.

TOM FRICK: It hurt me.

NICK CASBAR: It did hurt you didn't it? But know it was it is something to get those kind of results under a real world condition instead of buying a machine based upon a certain speed that you thought it was going to go and all of a sudden you can't get the wire because it's fourteen thousandths or what you were told is really not real world. So you know the guys at Makino have really come up with something here and I'm glad you are the recipient because you're a good looking guy. No I'm kidding.

TOM FRICK: Thank you.

NICK CASBAR: Thank you Tom so much for your effort here.

TOM FRICK: I just wanted to let you know that I am not being paid by Makino for this. I believe in the technology that I am using. I didn't believe it at first until I used it and hopefully other people out there will have the same experience, pleasant experience that I'm having with it.

NICK CASBAR: I would like to thank everybody for attending our HEAT seminar and if you would like to contact me directly you can, you can call you know the numbers provided and I'll be glad to answer any of your questions. Thank you very much.