Welcome To The Electroplunge Project Website!

Introduction

Electroplunge is an Electrical Discharge Machine (EDM) that evolves from my Mechanical Engineering Technology Senior Project of 2002 (below). The 2002 EDM is a design constructed with the aid of a book by Robert Langlois (right), originally published in Home Machine Shop magazine. The 2002 machine's purpose was to demonstrate the EDM process for removal of broken tool bits with an emphasis on the mechanical design and analysis.

The EDM is currently used for a few applications at VTC, including class demonstrations. To a non-technical person, the show may consist of a few sparks, the sound of "frying bacon", and a resulting hole. To the technical person however, the existing EDM has several problems that were unable to be addressed in 2002. My ELM senior project focuses on some of these problems as well as some other technologies in the design of a new EDM called Electroplunge.

Electroplunge Background

EDM is an important technology in the manufacturing world. Since World War II, EDM has grown to be the most widely used non-traditional manufacturing process available. The applications vary from removing broken bits in expensive parts, to machining elaborate cavities, to producing microscopic holes in dies. EDM is sometimes the only option for machining very hard materials. However, the machines are very expensive; often tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single machine. They often require extensive training and maintenance, and many times the machines are designed for specific applications.

For the traditional machine shop like the one at VTC, an EDM like the ones described above would seem like a luxury, and may not even be used more than once or twice a year. The existing EDM in the VTC machine shop is imprecise, difficult to use, and limited to few applications. The Electroplunge solution will seek to resolve many of these problems and offer a better educational value to the machine shop labs at VTC.