INVESTIGATION OF THE POWER OUTPUT AND GAP VOLTAGE DURING ELECTRIC DISCHARGE MACHINING USING MICROCOMPUTER-BASED INSTRUMENTATION.

An analog wattmeter has been developed for direct measurement of electrical power dissipation and the discharge gap during electrical discharge machining (EDM). A microcomputer samples power and corresponding gap voltage at regular intervals. Digitally encoded waveforms, which represent blocks of continuous power and voltage pulse trains, are stored on floppy disks for subsequent display and analysis. The advantage of using this microcomputer-based integrated measurement system is the ability to capture both typical and random events of phenomena in EDM and also to extract and process information from the digitized waveforms which represent characteristics of these events. In this investigation, samples of power and voltage pulse characteristics during four EDM tests have been recorded, analyzed for unit and time-averaged variations and meticulously studied with the aid of the microcomputer-based system.