Content area
Full Text
"You guys are crazy!"
That's what Makino EDM product line manager Brian Pfluger was told-loudly-by a medical-industry customer after Pfluger recommended he use coated wire to make a custom housing for cancer treatment machines. Coated wire costs twice as much as uncoated, standard brass wire, so its use in the client's application would increase manufacturing costs by about $100.
But, as Pfluger demonstrated to the red-faced client, the coated wire used in conjunction with Makino's (Auburn Hills, MI) high-energy applied technology-or HEAT-would make a 60-hour job into a 34-hour task: A cost-benefit analysis revealed the client would save money, not waste it unnecessarily, because the 26 hours saved on the custom housing job would allow the client to earn $1300-$3900 in machine time for another piece, based on shop-time estimates of $50-$ 150 per hour.
"What's more valuable to your operations," Pfluger asked his client, "saving $100 in manufacturing costs, or gaining 26 additional hours of billable machine time?"
According to Pfluger, the mollified client said: "You know what? 1 never thought about it that way."
Pfluger's anecdote underscores the complexity of medical manufacturing with already-complex wire electric discharge machining. Since the invention of wire EDM in the 1960s, the technology has made difficult-to-machine shapes possible in conductive metals. Its opened the door to making medical devices such as heart stents, mini-tools for robots that assist during "keyhole" surgery, and implants that replace hips, knees, elbows and shoulders.
Just as wire EDM has made more complex medical devices possible, the machines that make this type of manufacturing possible continue to advance as well.
Wire Guidance
Makino came out with two new wire EDMs in September: the U3 with X, Y and Z axes travels of 370 x 270 x 220 mm, respectively; and the U6, which increases the machine travels to 650 x 450 x 420 mm.
The worktable on the U-Series is stationary, to improve machining precision and provide greater flexibility for workpiece setup. The U-Series offers a choice of wire guide systems on the machine. Customers now have the ability to choose either a PICO (round) guide system or a Split-V Guide system, depending on their applications or preference.
Pfluger explained that the PICO round wire guide offers a typical guide life of...