The Development of Large-scale Production of Mircoholes by EDM

Abstract

Microholes have been widely used in various fields of industry such as fuel injection nozzles, inkjet printer heads, fluid sensors and optical fiber connectors. Since the development of WEDG (Wire-Electro-Discharge Grinding), micro-EDM has been an excellent technology for machining micro holes in metals and alloys. However, there remains two main problems of machining micro holes by EDM. One is how to machine micro holes continuously and the other one is how to supply micro tools automatically. This paper deals with a new method which enables automatic mass production of microholes by EDM.