EDM Setup : Electrode Parameters

Access: Open this function from one of the following locations:

Select Electrode > Tools > EDM Setup from the menu bar.
Select EDM Setup from the Electrode Guide Toolbar.
Right-click a Component , UCS , Folder , Electrode or Location in the Electrode Tree to display the popup menu and then select EDM Setup.

The EDM Setup Electrode Parameters are displayed as follows (browse the EDM tree within the EDM Setup dialog to display the parameters relevant to the selected item).

When selecting the Electrode, the following parameters are displayed.

Electrode Parameters

Burning Stages

Electrode Parameters

The following parameters appear in the Electrode Parameters section:

Electrode Name

The name of the electrode and its number as it appears in the Electrode Tree on the left.

Comment

Enter a comment if required.

Material

Select the electrode Material from the dropdown list.

Burn Faces Area

This area displays the 2D (projected) and 3D (total) burning face areas. This value is required by various EDM machines to optimize the burning process.

Press the button to calculate these areas. This operation invokes the Area function which calculates the 2D and 3D burning face areas of selected faces.
Once the button is clicked, the system selects all the electrode's burning faces but, if required, you can manually change the selection (add or remove faces). This may be needed, for example, if the electrode covers a portion of the originally defined burning area.
Example:Example:

Unselect the non-relevant faces and click OK in the Area function Feature Guide to get the 2D and 3D surface area into the EDM Setup dialog.

Upon completion, the 2D and 3D burning face area fields are updated automatically.

Before calculating the burning face area:

After calculating the burning face area:

The last selection of faces for each electrode is kept. As a default, the system will select all burning faces, however the system always keeps the last selection status for each electrode, so if you select/unselect faces, in Edit mode the last selection is available.

To reset the selection (set to default) click the All Burning Faces screen parameter in the Area function.

The All Burning Faces button restores the system default of selecting all the burning faces of the electrode. This is useful if the electrode has multiple burning faces and you have manually unselected some of them.

The calculation of the 2D and 3D burning face areas is based on the selected burning faces.


User Selected Burning Faces System Selected Burning Faces

Clicking All Burning Faces will return higher surface area values.

In the Component Parameters page of the dialog, the Calculate Electrodes Areas considers the last selected faces, so it works based on the last selection of each electrode.

Total Locations Count / Locations Count

The number of locations for this electrode.

If an electrode only appears once (all its locations are under the same folder/root), the Total Locations Count field is displayed, as shown below:

If an electrode appears more than once, the following data is displayed:

Locations Count

Shows the number of locations under the selected appearance of the electrode.

Out Of

Shows the total number of locations under that electrode in all its appearances.

The adjacent button displays the following information:

Hover over the button to display a tooltip showing all the locations of the electrode.
Click the button to highlight all the folders (in the tree) in which the electrode appears.

Burning Stages

The following parameters appear in the Burning Stages section:

Each burning stage (Rough, SemiFinish, Finish or Polish) can be hidden by pressing on the X in the appropriate column header. At least one burning stage must appear. Once a burning stage is hidden, the Add Burning Stage button appears and clicking this button displays a dropdown list of the hidden burning stages; click a stage from this dropdown list to re-display it the dialog.

In the example below, the Finish and Polish burning stages are hidden. The Add Burning Stage button appears and, when clicked, displays a dropdown list of the hidden burning stages. Click a hidden stage to re-display it the dialog.

For each of the burning stages (Rough, SemiFinish, Finish or Polish), the following parameters can be set:

Quantity	The number of electrodes at each burning stage.
Orbiting Type	Select the Orbiting Type from the dropdown list.
Orbiting Size	Set how much the electrode rotates.
Spark Gap	The distance between the electrode and the workpiece when discharges are occurring.
Offset	This parameter defines the difference between the actual electrode and the designed electrode. (The actual electrode is geometrically smaller than the designed electrode). In essence, this parameter defines how much material should be left after the burning, for the next electrode operation. This parameter is used by the CMM measuring function which, while inspecting an electrode, considers the burning parameters.
Material	Select the specific electrode Material from the dropdown list.
Holder	The number of holders at each burning stage.

Some functionality may be dependent on the product package. Contact your Reseller if you require a license.