• International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.3-6
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• 2008

Electrical discharge machining (EDM) is one of the most widespread nonconventional machining processes. Recently, a low-power micro-EDM process was introduced using a cylindrical electrode. Since its development, micro-EDM has been applied effectively to micromachining, and because the device setup for this process is simple, it is suitable for a microfactory that minimizes machines to fabricate small products economically in one system. In the EDM process, however, the electrode is also removed along with the workpiece. Therefore, the electrode shape and length vary as machining progresses. In this paper, a control method using a high speed realtime voltage measurement is proposed to regulate the rate and amount of material removed. The proposed method is based on the assumption that the volume of the workpiece removed in a single discharge pulses is nearly constant. The discharge pulses are monitored and controlled to regulate the amount of material removed. For this purpose, we developed an algorithm and apparatus for counting the number of discharge pulses. Electrode wear compensation using pulse number information was applied to EDM milling in a microfactory, in which a slight tilt of the workpiece may occur. The proposed control method improves the machining quality and efficiency by eliminating the inaccuracies caused by electrode wear and workpiece tilt.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.499-500
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• 2006

The electrode wear in micro-EDM significantly deteriorates the machining accuracy. In this regard, electrode wear needs to be compensated in-process to improve the product quality. Therefore, there are substantial amount of research about electrode wear. In this study a control method for micro-EDM using discharge pulse counting is proposed. The method is based on the assumption that the removed workpiece volume is proportional to the number of discharge pulses, which is verified from experimental results analyzing geometrically machined volume according to various number of discharges. Especially, the method has an advantage that electrode wear does not need to be concerned. The proposed method is implemented to an actual micro-EDM system using high speed data acquisition board, simple counting algorithm with 3 axis motion system. As a result, it is demonstrated that the volume of hole machined by EDM drilling can be accurately estimated using the number of discharge pulses. In EDM milling process a micro groove without depth variation caused by electrode wear could be machined using the developed control method. Consequently, it is shown that machining accuracy in drilling and milling processes can be improved by using process control based on the number of discharge pulses.