Ben Krasnow got his first (in a series of, by the sound of it) EDM video up as promised and the OB Sphinx gets a starring role! EDM's been pretty heavily featured in my "to build" list for a couple of years or so now. I frequently seem to need to machine hardened materials, make hard internal corners, or other EDM-only features that I end up having to work around. Not having a surface grinder exacerbates the issue on the hardened stuff, too. Other than the Dynomotion board being kind of expensive (in essence, a $250 Arduino running 8-axis grbl- motor drivers still required), but I think that's just because it's FPGA like the Mesa boards, and possibly the high-current EDM PSU being likely much more expensive, this seems eminently doable. Not only doable, but actually pretty easy. It's a price hurdle, not a complexity hurdle, which is great. The paint sprayer is only a couple hundred bucks or so and I already have the same model he uses anyway (great for garage repaints, if anyone has one of those coming up this spring!). Looking forward to the other videos, looks like he's gonna do wire and sinker EDM after this! Edit: finish your sentences, dummy!
Yeah, it's pretty great. Even a simple 1-axis cylindrical sinker unit would be great for shops who regularly have to remove broken taps! Not that I'd know anything about that... This is the PSU. It is, as I suspected, Not Cheap: BX17 Arc Generator - €3000 is not nothing for one small part of the whole. It's cheap enough, however, that I suspect trying to DIY it wouldn't be a valuable use of time. 30A, up to 200kHz, fully controllable and programmable, frequency mode, constant energy mode, etc etc. That said, it makes me wonder if simply PWMing a high-current source through a high-current high frequency switch (MOSFET, IGBT, whatever is appropriate), like a TIG or stick welder (MIG is voltage controlled, no good), could sufficiently approximate the general idea to actually replace it on a temporary (or occasional usage) basis. You could still take a voltage reading off the cables to get the arc length to pass back to the controller board...
I was poking Kyo on YT about if they posted this on the forum yet. It's a great build, but I don't know what those electronics cost yet.
