What are the advantages of graphite electrodes?
(1) The increasing complexity of mold geometry and the diversification of product applications have led to higher and higher requirements for the discharge accuracy of spark machines. The advantages of graphite electrodes are that they are easier to process, have a high EDM removal rate, and have low graphite loss. Therefore, some customers of group-based spark machines have abandoned copper electrodes and switched to graphite electrodes. In addition, some electrodes of special shapes cannot be made of copper, but graphite is easier to shape. Moreover, copper electrodes are heavier and not suitable for processing large electrodes. These factors have caused some group-based spark machine customers to use graphite electrodes.
(2) Graphite electrodes are easier to process and the processing speed is significantly faster than that of copper electrodes. For example, the processing speed of graphite using milling technology is 2 to 3 times faster than that of other metals and does not require additional manual processing, while copper electrodes require manual filing. Similarly, if a high-speed graphite machining center is used to manufacture electrodes, the speed will be faster, the efficiency will be higher, and there will be no dust problems. In these processing processes, choosing tools and graphite with appropriate hardness can reduce tool wear and damage to copper electrodes. If the milling time of graphite electrodes and copper electrodes is specifically compared, graphite electrodes are 67% faster than copper electrodes. In general EDM, the processing using graphite electrodes is 58% faster than that using copper electrodes. This greatly reduces processing time and manufacturing costs.
(3) The design of graphite electrodes is different from that of traditional copper electrodes. Many mold factories usually have different allowances for rough machining and fine machining of copper electrodes, while graphite electrodes use almost the same allowance, which reduces the number of CAD/CAM and machine processing times. This reason alone is enough to greatly improve the accuracy of the mold cavity.
