The Research On CAD/CAM For High-speed Wire Electro-Discharge Machine

High-speed wire electro-discharge machine (WEDM), with its simple structure, less expensive, is widely produced and used in China. Until to now the programs in the WEDM machining are manually created by the operators from their experiences and the drawing data in computers, the automatic CAD/CAM programming software with full functions and low cost are urgently needed.In this paper the CAD/CAM programming software in High-speed WEDM by using object orient programming (OPP) and the principles & methods in software project has been developed. The software has two parts: the machine compononent drawing and machining process coding. The drawing parts includes the fundamental drawing, advanced drawing, drawings edit and change, which may create a two-dimension drawing that users want, and the coding part includes the creatingsof machining paths from given process conditions, the creation of 3B format machining code commonly used in WEDM through post-processing programs, and the transmission of the code to WEDM. The software system also includes process data-base that can help the operator choose machining parameters and standard drawing file interface that can import nad export DXF (AutoCAD) files.The interface friend, operation simple, functional, easy to use of software system have been proved by practices.