Cimatron’s Electrode Design: Speeding Up and Enhancing the Most Time-Pressured Aspect of Toolmaking
Electrode design is rarely given the attention it deserves. On most mold or die projects it is seen as a supporting task – something that has to be done between the main design work and the machine – not as a critical path item in itself.
But talk to anyone who has worked through a complex tooling project that called for 30, 50 or 80 electrodes and the story changes quickly. If the design of the electrodes is not fast, precise and repeatable it becomes one of the biggest bottlenecks in the whole toolmaking schedule.
That bottleneck is what Cimatron Electrodes was developed to do away with.
The electrode problem that most toolrooms have to face.
In many toolrooms, the design of electrodes still relies on a mixture of manual geometry extraction, ad hoc holder design, and informal documentation of burning parameters. This works if jobs are small and the number of electrodes is small. It breaks down when the volume goes up.
Common problems are spark gaps set differently on each electrode, holders that do not fit the machine fixtures because they were designed without a standard, burning sheets that get lost or not filled out consistently. These problems are manageable when the batch is small. If a mold needs several dozen electrodes with different geometries and burn depths, the inconsistency means rework and delay.
Cimatron Electrodes solves all these problems by standardizing and automating the entire electrode workflow in a single connected environment.
One Workflow From Burn Surface to Machined Electrode
The complete electrode cycle in Cimatron Electrodes is as follows:
Burn surface selection – the designer selects the surfaces to be burned directly from the mold or die geometry without extracting or re-modeling them
Automated generation of holder and blank generation – holder geometry and blank dimensions are generated automatically based on burn surface selection and predefined templates
Definition of the burning process – spark gaps, 2D and 3D orbiting paths and rough offsets are set per electrode, and the parameters are stored with the electrode instead of in a separate spreadsheet
Machining strategy application – the system can automatically apply user defined milling strategies to the electrode geometry, selecting the appropriate strategy without the programr having to make this decision for each individual electrode
Verification and Drawing Generation — Operators can check electrode dimensions before starting burn through the automatic generation of inspection drawings
The fact that this entire workflow is done in one environment is what makes Cimatron Electrodes really faster, not just differently organized.
Fewer surprises with EDM machine
A collision is one of the most common sources of rework in electrode intensive toolmaking, and is only discovered after the electrode is mounted on the EDM machine and the operator tries to orient it. The toolroom has already spent machining time on an electrode that now needs to be redone.
Cimatron Electrodes includes collision checking between the electrode geometry, the holder and part or fixture geometry before anything is sent to the machine. Problems are found and fixed when they can be fixed in software, before any machining hours are spent.
Once Defined, Consistent Use of Burning Parameters
Keeping the burn parameters consistent is one of those things that sounds easy but can be surprisingly difficult to do when you have a large set of electrodes and the data is sitting in spreadsheets or informal notes.
In Cimatron Electrodes each individual electrode has spark gaps, orbiting parameters and rough offsets stored as part of its definition. The data is then used to create burn sheets and setup documentation, so that the EDM operator has a clear and consistent reference for each electrode in the set, without manual transcription.
Templates automatically carry forward the burning parameters if you want to use the same settings on a family of similar electrodes, which avoids repetitive data entry and the errors that go along with it.
Volume-Scaled Machining Strategies
Cimatron Electrodes supports 2.5 to 5-axis electrode machining with strategies specifically tuned to the geometry profiles typical in mold and die work. For volume machining of electrodes, the ability to define machining sequences one time, and then use them on projects with similar electrode geometry, is a huge time saver.
The system automatically selects the appropriate strategy based on the geometry of the electrode – without the programr having to decide that for each individual electrode in a large batch. This is where the efficiency gains really multiply, not just for one electrode but all of them.
Standalone or Integrated: Either Way It Works
Cimatron Electrodes is available as a standalone module for toolrooms whose main focus is on electrode design and machining, or in conjunction with Cimatron Mold or Cimatron Die, for a complete design-to-manufacturing process.
Pelf Engineering sells Cimatron Electrodes in both setups and will work with your team to figure out which deployment makes sense depending on how your toolroom is set up and where the biggest efficiency opportunities exist.
If your shop is producing electrodes in volume, and the current process is slower or less consistent than it should be, then Cimatron Electrodes is worth a good look. Call Pelf Engineering and we will walk you through the workflow for your specific electrode geometry.