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Ed Huntress Ed Huntress is offline
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Default hard black plastic?


wrote in message
...
On Oct 24, 10:30 am, Don Foreman
wrote:
On Fri, 24 Oct 2008 08:21:30 -0500, "Karl Townsend"

wrote:
I need to make some new idler wheels for my wire EDM. The material is a
very
hard black plastic. Maybe the same stuff you see on a car electrical
distributor. It needs to be non-conductive and be able to have a light
press
fit for a ball bearing.


Can somebody give me a material name and source to order?


Karl


The most economical way to produce things like this is to mold them.
However, that isn't necessarily the only way, nor the best way if you
don't happen to have the molds.

I'd make an undersized aluminum wheel, press that into an insulating
bushing made of Delryn, Noryl, phenolic or whatever, and then possibly
press that assy into a metal "tire" that would resist wear. The
resulting wheel would be non-conductive from rim to center and would
be quite robust.


What voltage?

On the order of several hundred volts, at very high impedance. If there's
any conductivity, the sparks won't initiate and the machine won't cut.

The actual cutting goes on at around the voltages you have with a welder --
quite low. The high initiation voltage is just to ionize the channel for the
actual current flow.

--
Ed Huntress