Achieving high accuracy and high removal rate in micro-EDM by electrostatic induction feeding method

With conventional relaxation pulse generators used in micro-electrical discharge machining, due to the difficulty in keeping the minimum necessary discharge interval between pulse discharges, localized discharge and abnormal arc occur frequently. In contrast, with the newly developed electrostatic induction feeding method, only a single discharge occurs for each cycle of the periodic pulse voltage. As this realizes sufficient cooling of the discharge gap between pulses, thermal stress on the machined surface is less and duty factors can be increased, resulting in higher accuracy and machining speed compared to the relaxation pulse generator. (C) 2010 CIRP.