# Any experience with wire edm machines



## MG-42 (Jun 19, 2012)

The next piece of equipment I am looking for in my shop is a wire edm. I go to e-bay and look at what is for sale and I just do not want to buy a piece of junk. Any help would be appreciated.


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## brucer (Jun 19, 2012)

The three shops I've worked at, all of them have Agie, and Sodick machines.. one of the shops had an older bridgeport/japax wire.


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## MG-42 (Jun 19, 2012)

When I check out e-bay there seems to be a number of Sodick,Charmilles,and Mitsubishi machines. How is it possible to determine a good machine or not?


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## jgedde (Jun 19, 2012)

We use a Mitsubishi at work.  It's very impressive as far as its ability to hold a tolerance, but tech support could be better...  The manual is somewhat poor translation wise.  "Make to be sure to lubricate proper before hiding at the end"

John


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## xalky (Jun 19, 2012)

You would think that someone who spoke both languages would be able to make a killing writing translations for these foreign companies shipping things to the USA. That could be a business unto itself.


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## MG-42 (Jun 19, 2012)

I under stand about the translation thing. I have a Chinese lathe and the manual is the pits. Even my Sharps manual is a lot lacking.


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## pdentrem (Jun 20, 2012)

We've had 2 Japax and 3 Sodick units in the shop. The Japax were not submersible tables and the Sodick are. There are good and bads in either case. The real problem is the maintainence to keep the machine in tolerance. The current 2 Sodicks are older and we are looking at replacements in the near future. Parts are getting harder to find. We currently have one down waiting for a new/ used computer. 
Auto threading is an option you should look at. The wire always breaks when you just leave to do something else. 
Filtration of the water and resin are critical and we change filters about once a week. We added a pre filter to remove the larger particles before the return water gets to the real filters, it has helped.
Also look at whether the return water is dumped into the main tank, thus mixing with the filtered water, bad design as the Sodicks we have do that, while the Japax had separate tanks for the return water and the filtered water.


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## MG-42 (Jun 20, 2012)

I was just looking at a japax on e-bay.So thank you very much for your input. At least I know have a few questions to start asking. Thanks again


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