Copper VS Graphite: Which Material is Better for EDM Electrodes? | Learn to Burn

[@dragginfool]

I have had the good fortune of meeting Jim Weirdo a couple times. Great Guy and very knowledgeable. Graphite is for rapid, high volumetric material removal where detail is not critical. If you have to remove a lot of material, go Graphite. Copper Tungsten IMHO should only be used for burning Carbide. Tellurium Copper is the proper Copper to use for burning metals. It machines nice and will allow for multiple burns with ultra fine detail with one electrode. It burns slower than Graphite, but if you use Graphite, and you have to make, mount, indicate, re-touch off and set work coordinates (which opens the door for mistakes and mis-matches) HAVE YOU REALLY SAVED ANY TIME? Usually not. I use Tellurium Copper 90% of the time. MUCH cheaper than Copper Tungsten. Also rough with Graphite and finishing with Copper is a good strategy oftentimes.

[@jimurrata6785]

Tungsten is Wolfram (W) on the periodic table.

[@dghtr79_36]

and quite a basic fact, so Cu vs CuW was kind of an obvious choice for him, but oh well...

[@warrior69fox]

That’s so funny such a small world, Jim has helped me out many times navigating our EA8 when it came in! Great guy, tough name haha

[@diytwoincollege7079]

The Makino is the bomb for cutting electrodes!

[@DeathswingKettlebell]

Copper is obviously for finishing. However whenever i programmed a copper finishing pass on a EA12, it only asks how much time is spent duing the on time, instead of a final depth where it reaches and stops.

[@murphyforsyth4224]

The bloopers are always so funny

[@jaredjared8347]

Please stop saying copper. You need to say copper tungsten, if that’s what you are using, because copper without tungsten, is a common material to burn with. General rule of thumb is copper tungsten will burn slower but will give higher finish and less wear. 10% approximately Graphite is faster burn but can’t get as nice of a finish. Approximately 50% wear The finer the finish means the spark gap is smaller, that’s why the electrode wears more. Spark gap is the width of the spark between the electrode and the part. So the electrode gets closer to the part, causing it to wear more. Rookie mistake selecting the wrong tech.

[@JohnBlaze505]

Practical machinist has an odd yt channel, some of these videos are done so well and very informative, others...not so much. It's free though so I'm not gonna complain

[@zerotolerancecnc]

Thanks for watching!

[@markbalia4012]

I'm edm operator sodick brand, i can't make sharp corner using copper electrode. What kind of electrode that can make sharp corner.?

[@siazz1224]

he loves to smile 😂😂 thanks for the video 👍

[@markhorner4982]

my sparking experience was , in case of emergency get me to do it on nights , it was 50/50 if it was right lol ( i was high risk ) , but used to rough with a graphite, finish with copper so 2 burns, no tight tight tolerance , but i hated milling graphite dirty material , the guys who done it full time were grey at the end of the week company paid for a sauna every weekend for them .

[@zerotolerancecnc]

It does require a good sucker system, or things can get dusty. We've invested in a great sucker system to minimize graphite dust around our shop. But when handling graphite most of the time your hands become covered in dust, then its on your face & on every door handle in the shop lol!

[@theskofily]

You didn't mention that to cut the graphite you need a special machine for that ... Also you did not needed to use the copper tungsten ( we use it for burning tungsten or widia) you can take high grade of regular copper that fits to electrodes and the costs are lower then the copper tungsten But yes if you have a massive work with EDM it's very economy to use graphite in the long run

[@zerotolerancecnc]

You can technically use any mill for graphite machining as long as you have a vacuum system to control the dust. We keep a dedicated mill in our shop as the electrode mill with a great sucker system. We just upgraded to a Makino F3 (shown in this episode) before we had a DMTG smaller mill and it was also only used for graphite but could have been used to cut other materials as well, the customer who purchased the DMTG mill from us will also be using it for graphite.

[@theskofily]

@@zerotolerancecnc frome where do you buy the vacuum system?

[@Z-add]

Why don't you mill most of the part and use edm for the finer details?

[@shaunwilmer2358]

Could you explain how you decide on orientation. Interested to know why you would run at 90deg and have a shallower electrode and pass. Excellent videos :)

[@shaunwilmer2358]

Sorry wouldn't run at 90 deg !

[@zerotolerancecnc]

We did it this way just to show what a blind pocket would look like for video results, that's a great question! Normally you would do it in the shallow direction for sure.

[@nearme3826]

which dielectric fluid is best for Graphite Electrodes ( Synthetic / Petroleum)

[@AhmedMohamed-yj3kt]

Can I cut graphite with molybdenum wire Edm?

[@BuddhistZenDave]

In my shop we used cvd organic diamond. think it's 200+ for a 3/8 endmill.

[@zerotolerancecnc]

Thanks for watching!!

[@hendroesutantoe6810]

how about using bronze

[@AgentPipapo]

cuw mean CuW (Kupfer Wolfram) Wolfram is tungston

[@kamil19951]

All good, but unfortunately you are comparing copper TUNGSTEN against graphite. General C101 is a lot cheaper.

[@rachelbosco9485]

We use a lot of c3 graphite,

[@TheShorterboy]

Tungsten is W it stands for Wolfram

[@rachelbosco9485]

Love Jim