Graphite is very common in nature, and graphene is known to be a high-strength material, but it may still take years or even decades for scientists to find a way to convert graphite into large sheets of high-quality graphene “films”, so that they can be used to make various useful substances for human beings. According to scientists, graphene has a series of unique characteristics in addition to its extraordinary firmness. Graphene is also known as a material with excellent electrical conductivity, which makes it have great application potential in the field of microelectronics. Researchers even see graphene as an alternative to silicon that could be used to make future supercomputers.
Note: graphite electrode for EDM, also known as copper male.
1: With the increasing complexity of die geometry and the diversification of product application, the demand for discharge accuracy of spark machine is higher and higher. The advantages of graphite electrode are easy machining, high removal rate of EDM and low graphite loss. Therefore, some customers of group based spark machines give up copper electrode and use graphite electrode instead. In addition, some special shaped electrodes can not be made of copper, but graphite is easier to form, and the copper electrode is heavy, which is not suitable for processing large electrode. These factors cause some group based spark machine customers to use graphite electrode.
2: Graphite electrode is easier to process, and the processing speed is obviously faster than copper electrode. For example, when graphite is processed by milling process, its processing speed is 2-3 times faster than that of other metals, and no additional manual processing is required, while manual grinding is required for copper electrode. Similarly, if the high-speed graphite machining center is used to manufacture the electrode, the speed will be faster, the efficiency will be higher, and there will be no dust problem. In these processes, choosing the right hardness tool and graphite can reduce the tool wear and copper damage. If the milling time of graphite electrode is compared with copper electrode, graphite electrode is 67% faster than copper electrode. In general, the machining time of graphite electrode is 58% faster than copper electrode. In this way, the processing time is greatly reduced, and the manufacturing cost is also reduced.
3: The design of graphite electrode is different from that of traditional copper electrode. Many mold factories usually have different reserve for rough machining and finishing of copper electrode, while graphite electrode uses almost the same amount of reserve, which reduces the number of CAD / CAM and machining. This alone is enough to improve the accuracy of die cavity to a large extent.
