Three swordsmen of Wire cut Electrical Discharge Machining: High-speed WEDM, Low-speed WEDM, Medium-wire WEDM, what is your ideal choice?

1. High-speed WEDM: A cost-effective batch processer.

High-speed WEDM is a high-speed electric spark wire cutting technology, the working process of the electrode wire (usually molybdenum wire) in the processing area at a high speed back and forth movement, through the electric spark discharge erosion of the workpiece material, the formation of the slit.

Molybdenum wire is usually used because of its good abrasion resistance and electrical conductivity and because it can be recycled many times, reducing the cost of use.It is widely used in industrial production that requires fast speed, low cost and low precision, such as rough machining of mechanical parts and cutting of simple shaped parts, such as rough parts before milling or turning, punches, shear blades, pliers parts and so on.

Engineering highlights：

High Speed Reciprocating Wire: Higher cutting speeds, usually between 50-400mm per minute, suitable for processing larger and thicker workpieces.

Economical working fluid: mainly using emulsion or water-based working fluid, low cost.

One cut to shape: usually one cut to complete processing, high efficiency.

Core strengths：

Lowest cost: equipment investment, consumables (molybdenum wire can be reused), the cost of working fluid are much lower than the medium and slow walking wire, the cost of single-piece processing is very competitive.

High processing efficiency: High-speed wire running brings high cutting speed, especially suitable for large quantities of parts that do not require extreme precision.

Easy maintenance: the structure of the equipment is relatively simple, with low technical requirements for operation and maintenance.

Presented to the customer：

Rapid delivery: Shorten the production cycle to meet the demand for rapid, high-volume production.

Significant Cost Reduction: Significantly reduce machining costs and improve product price competitiveness, especially suitable for standard parts, rough machining or parts with low precision requirements.

Above can see the advantages of fast walking wire is low cost, suitable for mass production, and fast, high efficiency; At the same time, there are certain shortcomings: due to high-speed cutting, the parts obtained from the accuracy and surface quality is not high, is not suitable for the requirements of high-precision and high-finish parts processing.

2.Low-speed WEDM:the pinnacle of extreme precision.

Slow-wire technology uses an electrode wire (usually brass or galvanised copper wire) that moves in a single direction at low speed over the workpiece, gradually etching away the material through layer-by-layer discharges of electric sparks to form a fine cutting surface.

The electrode wire used in slow walking wire is usually disposable, which increases the cost of consumables, but ensures the precision and surface quality of machining. It is widely used in mould manufacturing, precision parts processing and other fields that require high precision and high surface quality, such as complex cavities in moulds, or non-standard shapes and contours of parts, or high-precision electronic connectors, high-precision scalpels and so on.

Engineering highlights：

Low-speed unidirectional wire walking: copper (or brass, galvanised) electrode wire running in one direction at low speed (<0.2m/s), single-use.

De-ionised water working fluid:High purity de-ionised water with precisely controlled conductivity ensures an excellent processing environment.

Ultra-precision Multi-stage Cutting:Usually 4 or even more cuts (roughing, multiple finishing) are used with precision power, servo and temperature control systems.

Advanced threading and guiding:Precision jewellery guides with automatic threading and very high positioning accuracy.

Core strengths：

Top precision and finish: the surface roughness is extremely low,usually Ra value can reach 0.2-0.8μm, and even mirror effect can be processed to meet the requirements of high quality surface.

Excellent processing consistency: one-way wire walking, high-precision control and stable environment, to ensure that large quantities of processed parts highly consistent dimensions.

Strong processing capability: it can achieve large taper, upper and lower shaped and other complex spatial surface processing.

Presented to the customer：

Faultless quality:Top machining quality is guaranteed for your high-precision moulds (Such as precision connector moulds, optical lens moulds), medical device parts, aerospace critical parts, precision instrument parts.

Perfect Surface, Reduced Subsequent Processes:The machined surface is as smooth as a mirror, greatly reducing or even eliminating the need for subsequent polishing and maintaining perfect geometric accuracy.

Complicated structures are easy to handle:Powerful taper and profile machining capabilities unlock the possibilities for more complex product designs.

The above can be seen that the advantages of the slow walking wire is high precision and high surface quality, and is suitable for complex shapes and high requirements of the mould processing.

Its disadvantages are slower speed, relatively low productivity, and higher cost of equipment and consumables.

3.Medium-wire WEDM: the golden balance of precision and efficiency.

Medium walking wire combines the characteristics of fast walking wire and slow walking wire, using medium-wire cutting, the electrode wire is usually used molybdenum wire, and in the control system incorporates some of the technical advantages of the slow walking wire.

Molybdenum wire is usually used for medium-wire cutting. Molybdenum wire can be recycled, which reduces the cost of consumables, but due to the characteristics of the molybdenum wire, the surface quality and precision are difficult to match that of a slow-wire cutting machine. It is suitable for processing occasions with medium precision and surface quality requirements, such as the manufacture of some precision mechanical parts and moulds, for example, parts with curved or shaped contours, metal terminals in electrical equipment, or supporting structural parts in aircraft or spacecraft.

Engineering highlights：

Variable speed wire travelling technology: the core innovation! Automatic switching between high-speed wire walking (roughing) and low-speed/unidirectional wire walking (finishing) on the same machine.

Multiple Cutting Technology: Adopting multiple processes, such as ‘roughing - semi-finishing - finishing’, which significantly improves the precision and finish.

Intelligent control system: precise control of wire speed, tension, electric parameters and working fluid.

Core strengths：

The king of cost-effective:Under the premise of approaching the precision and finish of slow-feeding wire, the cost of equipment and processing cost is much lower than that of slow-feeding wire, and the return on investment is high.

Accuracy and finish are greatly improved: the processing accuracy is between fast walking wire and slow walking wire, usually between ±0.005-0.01mm, and the surface roughness Ra can be up to 0.8-1.6μm, which meets the requirements of most of the precision moulds and parts.

Maintaining higher efficiency:Although slower than the fast walking wire, it still has speed advantage over the slow walking wire, with high efficiency in roughing stage.

Presented to the customer:

Precision jumps, cost is controllable:Providing you with processing solutions close to high-end quality but at a better cost, ideal for precision stamping moulds, injection moulds, electrodes and all kinds of mechanical parts.

Good surface quality: Fine surface streaks and good finish after finishing, reducing subsequent polishing workload.

Wide range of applications: Perfectly covers most application scenarios from higher precision requirements to high precision requirements.

It can be seen above that the advantages of the medium walking wire is a balance of speed, precision and cost, suitable for a wide range of industrial applications, and equipment and operating costs are more moderate.

Its disadvantage is that in the precision and surface quality is not as good as the slow-walking wire, speed and efficiency is not as good as the fast-walking wire.

How to choose the wire cutting process you want?

When choosing a specific wire cutting process, the actual workpiece material, precision requirements, surface quality, productivity and cost should be taken into account, and the most suitable equipment should be chosen according to the requirements.

For example: When the processing accuracy and surface quality requirements are high, do not require production efficiency and cost, the choice of Low-speed WEDM is the best choice.

When the processing accuracy and surface quality for the medium requirements, at the same time will be taken into account the production efficiency and cost, the choice of Medium-wire WEDM is the optimal choice.

When the processing accuracy requirements are not high, and the processing of large quantities, High-speed WEDM is the ideal choice.

As society's demand for product diversification is more intense, multi-species, small and medium-sized batch production of the proportion of the obvious increase in the medium-wire processing of the traditional general processing equipment has been difficult to adapt to high-efficiency, high-quality, diversified machining requirements, but the medium-wire processing has a simple structure, low cost and the use of low consumption and other characteristics, so there is also its space for survival.

Slow-feeding machine tools and fast-feeding machine tools, compared with the processing efficiency, precision, surface quality and other aspects have a very obvious superiority.

Although the price of slow-feeding machine tools is more expensive, but with the rapid development of the manufacturing industry, it will be more and more used in various processing areas.

A brief comparison of the core features of the three machines: