A computer-aided EDM electrode design system for mold manufacturing

A large number of EDM electrodes are used in plastic injection mold manufac turing. However, electrode design is very time-consuming. This paper introd uces a computer-aided electrode design system for plastic injection mold ma nufacturing. An algorithm to detect sharp corner uncut for electrode design is introduced in the paper. Through this algorithm, sharp corner uncut can be detected by calculating the surface angles at their common edges. Using this system, when electrode boundaries are identified either by the user o r through detected sharp corner edges, the electrode tool, its holder and a working coordinate system (WCS) for electrode setting are created automati cally. The system has been tested and has proved to be able to shorten the electrode design lead-time significantly.