Would you buy a used wire EDM machine?

[Freedommachine]

Is it worth it?

Plenty of guys buy 30 year old lathes and mills. I don't see any threads around the interwebs of people showing off the killer deal they found on a 93' Mitsubishi wire machine though.

I really want to get into wire work and I see used machines at HGR all of the time. I just don't want to piss away $5k+ and 100 hours fooling with an "affordable" one that turns out to be garbage.

How much money should a guy be prepared to invest in order to get set up to do this type of work? I've been told that a media blaster and surface grinder are necessary support equipment, easy and cheap enough to set up but such things are good to know when creating a budget.

Wuddaya guys think?

 

[AJ H]

I’m conflicted with this often. I’d like to own a wire but don’t know squat about them. Luckily I have to much going on to go looking for one and haven’t had one fall in my lap. My thought tho is to find a friend that does know something about them and buy whatever brand/model they’re familiar with. I wouldn’t want to fly into it completely blind.

 

[Freedommachine]

My thought tho is to find a friend that does know something about them and buy whatever brand/model they’re familiar with. I wouldn’t want to fly into it completely blind.

This is very similar to what I'm trying to do. My Uncle did all of the quoting and such for the wire machines at a local mold shop and he spent years working with them before that. The shop was sold to a big corporation who ran it into the ground and my uncle retired... 3-4 years ago if I remember correctly.

I don't think he has much experience with buying, inspecting or repairing old units though. It's more of a 'buy new or nearly new and he knows how to make money with it' sort of situation. He is recommending Chermille - or however it's spelled lol.

 

[Garwood]

My ex-neighbor started a wedm shop in 2005. He started with two new Mitsubishis. I think he has six now. Plus a few hole poppers. His newest is quite the unit. Something like 50x20x20 travels iirc.

He's told me he'd never buy an old one because the tech has changed drastically.

I've watched this dude make millions running these things 24/7. He bought an acre of industrial land for cash. $800k to build 80x80x20 shop in the city paid cash. 2-4 fulltime employees. New Duramax every 2 years. Gave ex wife the million dollar house in the divorce.

New wedm's seem to be lucrative from what I see.

 

[Vancbiker]

The tech has changed a lot and old machines will be hard to figure out. Low volume product compared to mills and lathes. Nowhere near the breadth of knowledge to draw from. Add to that the controls have many features and firmware unique to WEDM processes. While at the shop I retired from, I sold several old Mitsu EDMs and 1 Fanuc as they were being replaced by new. In every case, we provided phone support to the new owner to help get them going. If you can find a seller able to do the same you might get going for reasonable effort and cost. No way would I buy an old EDM from a knows nothing used machine sales outfit.

 

[Garwood]

I bought a pair of 50x100 1.5kw Mazak CO2 lasers long time ago. A few folks warned me laser tech changes constantly and 10 year old lasers are obsolete. Only folks running older ones are those that can't afford to replace.

For reasons a bit out of my control I never set the lasers up, but I got a heck of an education about why you don't buy obsolete machines like those in the 5 years it took me to sell them at a big loss.

I bring this up because I believe wedm's are in the same boat as lasers.

 

[Freedommachine]

This is all very good to know, thanks guys - not what I was hoping to hear, but good to know none the less.

I guess the important question is; how much out of pocket cash would someone need to put down in order to have an operational wire edm? $30k? $50k?

Some financing would be acceptable to me but not more than an equal amount to the cash I invest directly. If I had to put $40k down and finance $100k; I'd either keep waiting or look for another option.

 

[Herding Cats]

Despite having no experience with EDM I'm gonna lean towards the other side. If the work you are looking to do is simple then why do you need a machine with newer technology? But I would say you or a good friend need to be pretty handy at repairing machines since support is unlikely.

I've often thought of buying an old EDM but even at a coupe grand I don't think I could justify the cost (mainly shop space).

So the short version is, if I had the type of work that an old machine could support, I wouldn't hesitate giving it a try. But if the work could support a new or newer machine then I would go that route.

But in my case an EDM would be a toy so I'll stick to what works for me and spend my toy money on racecar shit.

 

[Doug]

If....If I needed one, I would come over the border to nearby Meadville, pa.
and see what I could find, something in a shop, running.

 

[Freedommachine]

If....If I needed one, I would come over the border to nearby Meadville, pa.
and see what I could find, something in a shop, running.

Will there be a big sign? Or do I follow the clues like a scavenger hunt? Lol

 

[Doug]

Will there be a big sign? Or do I follow the clues like a scavenger hunt? Lol

No need for further help from me.
I'm sure your Razor sharp wit will serve you well.

 

[Freedommachine]

No need for further help from me.
I'm sure your Razor sharp wit will serve you well.

Oh c'mon Doug, I'm only tease'n. Help a brother out

 

[Mud]

Look in the Yellow Pages under Wire EDM.

 

[machinery_e]

I have been down the cheap used wire EDM road-it certainly is doable from an engineering standpoint if you're the right kind of guy. My first machine was a '84 Mitsubishi F1 series machine. I purchased 2 of them from an EDM shop in Columbus. This was about 20 years ago. Both were not running, they had put put about 10K into the one machine, and gave up. I was able to get one machine running between the two with basically no cost other than time. That was a great machine for sure. In later years I upgraded to a C series machine. The C series still lives on, its in a shop in the Columbus area now. The shop has newer EDM's, but the old ones still have their place. The F1 would still be going, but the new owner dropped it unloading it at his shop!

I would say the biggest questions to ask are from the business standpoint...if you're looking to make money with it. The work you're going to do determines what machine you need to get. A new machine can be the wrong answer and a used machine can also be the wrong answer-it all depends on the work you're doing. Its alot more complicated than say a 2 axis CNC lathe between new, used late model, and used very old. I have found EDM work is among the most difficult to break into if you're starting out from 0. I remember when I bought the C series machine, it was very cheap at auction. There was a woman there, that after the auctioneer sold the machine to me, he turned to her, and laughingly said I was now going to run her out of business with my newly acquired cheap machine. I'll never forget her response-it was a very firm, somber, "No, he's not". Years later, I can see how appropriate her response was with the dynamics of the machines and business.

 

[Freedommachine]

I make my own products, most of them are assemblies of small parts that would fit in your hand. I could benefit greatly from the accuracy and small cut radius of a wire edm.

I currently have to design around my manufacturing limitations. Everything needs to be milled, turned or laser cut. I try hard to avoid water jet and edm parts when possible because the industry standard rate on those processes is too high - more accurately speaking; those processes require a chunk of profit that I am not willing to give up.

I cannot be the only guy designing products to have hit this wall. Because it's so expensive; wire is usually reserved for tool and die, in lieu of broaching, or other critical work where it is the best tool for the job - it doesn't seem to be implemented in production of consumer products very often.

I was talking to my uncle about it and his response was; "wire is wire, it will be quoted at $6 per inch whether you have a new machine or one that barely runs."
Honestly, this seems foolish to me. If a shop has an old edm in the corner that they mainly use for shop support and occasional jobs; why not try to keep it running with lower cost work?

For example; I have one part that must be edm cut, there is no way to get around that. Mat'l is 4140; part is 1" long x 1/2" wide x 1/4" thick. The geometry is simple and the tightest tolerance is +/-0.003" on one feature that can be checked with an od mic. Inspection frequency is 1 in every 10 pcs.

My description for rfq's was: I would supply the material, cut to the vendors requested size and ground to thickness so that the plates could be stacked. Single pass cut, leave the tabs. Or "cut out the parts, check 1 feature on every 10th part, dunk in oil and throw them in a box; deliver 400 pcs in 90 days.

I put out an rfq on PM and here as well (I think). It took a month to get 1 single response on a job that was guaranteed to run unattended for quite a few hours. The guy who contacted me got the work and he did a fantastic job. I extended the order by another 300 pcs. His edm - that would have otherwise been idle - stayed running in the background for days while he carried on with other jobs.

I guess it's a long way of saying; I cannot be the only customer who could benefit from an edm vendor who uses discretion when quoting jobs - I would like to be that vendor.

My shop is home based, my overhead is virtually zero. If I could get a reliable wedm set up and running for under $15k; I could undercut the bigger shops on the easy, long run-time jobs and still turn a decent profit; I could also sell machine time to others like myself who have written off the technology as too expensive to source.

I do not need 4 or 5 axis or other cutting edge technology; just a nice basic machine that can thread its own wire.

 

[Mud]

Honestly, this seems foolish to me. If a shop has an old edm in the corner that they mainly use for shop support and occasional jobs; why not try to keep it running with lower cost work?

Have you read any of Eli Goldratt's work on Theory of Constraints? The second book in his The Goal series - It's not Luck - addresses exactly that situation and how to get past the standard hourly rate mentality to make use of excess capacity. His books are required reading in many large companies, I have one friend who participates in a TOC group of business owners who use it to address just about every business issue. I liked the books and learned a lot from them, the first was why you need excess capacity to stay on schedule.

I wish I had a shop to call on for wire work that could just fit it into their schedule when it was convenient and not bend me over with a NASA price when I needed dumptruck specs.

 

[Garwood]

What you all need is a neighbor with a WEDM shop!

BTW, little secret- Most WEDM shops do not have a Blanchard!

 

[Barbter]

Have you read any of Eli Goldratt's work on Theory of Constraints? The second book in his The Goal series - It's not Luck - addresses exactly that situation and how to get past the standard hourly rate mentality to make use of excess capacity. His books are required reading in many large companies, I have one friend who participates in a TOC group of business owners who use it to address just about every business issue. I liked the books and learned a lot from them, the first was why you need excess capacity to stay on schedule.

I wish I had a shop to call on for wire work that could just fit it into their schedule when it was convenient and not bend me over with a NASA price when I needed dumptruck specs.

Before I started my place, the place I was at was a tier 1 integrator to HamSund, RollsR, AppliedTech, Goodrich....we T/O 9mill with 95 people and went bankrupt 6 months after I started LoL.
We subsequently got going and then were 95% Goodrich with 35 people - another story....but to underline the places stupidity and your post - when I started we had a Hitachi HG400 Hori that the owner had bought for 250k. No toolholders and two tombstones. That was it.
It had been switched off for 6 months before I started (it was 6 months old) - the owner "couldn't get 75/hr work for it."
We had one large contract for subsea (fibre optic plates - ally) and we were late - so I got it tooled up by grabbing some spare holders from the other Hitachi verts, and within the week we were making more parts on this machine than the other 2 verts running.
By the end of the following month the accountant said we were more profitable than the place had been for any of the previous months of that year.
The owner found out the hori was running and went apeshit because the parts were returning just under 50/hr.
I had to literally spell it out to him that last month, and all previous months, he was paying finance (4.5k/month) for the machine to sit there doing nothing.
Every minute of every hour of every day, for 6 months.
And in the last month, although it hadn't achieved "his rate", we had been running 6x24 + Sunday am, and returned 25k more than he had last month.
And the other months.
And it had cost him no more finance. No more staff. No more OT.
Just a few cutters, and some electric.
And we were well on the way to catching up with our customer.

 

[Freedommachine]

Have you read any of Eli Goldratt's work on Theory of Constraints? The second book in his The Goal series - It's not Luck - addresses exactly that situation and how to get past the standard hourly rate mentality to make use of excess capacity. His books are required reading in many large companies, I have one friend who participates in a TOC group of business owners who use it to address just about every business issue. I liked the books and learned a lot from them, the first was why you need excess capacity to stay on schedule.

I have not. I will now though, it sounds interesting, thank you.

I wish I had a shop to call on for wire work that could just fit it into their schedule when it was convenient and not bend me over with a NASA price when I needed dumptruck specs.

Exactly! When I tell them "one pass cut" they look at me like I'm crazy. "Are you sure? That finish is pretty rough, like 600 grit sand paper." It's like I'm asking them to cook with a $500 bottle of wine or something .

What you are asking for is what I am looking to deliver. I just need to find the right 'good enough' machine at the right price.

There is a place in Michigan that deals exclusively in used edm machines but I'd rather light money on fire than pay dealer mark up. I may just have to keep an eye on the auctions and wait for a Garwood level deal to come up.

 

[Garwood]

"Garwood level deal"- LMAO!