"Artistic EDM," live from MD&M

The Medical Design & Manufacturing show is being held again in Anaheim California. Last year, I blogged about the artistic creations of James Kim, applications engineer at a company then called Charmilles. It has since merged with Agie to form AgieCharmilles. In addition to electrical discharge machinery, the company now provides high-end, multi-axis machine tools for high-speed machining.

James has been at work again with his beautiful creations. The sculpture of the arms twisted together (left, lower corner) signify the marriage of Agie and Charmilles: The new company can CNC and EDM parts (electrically conductive materials cannot be EDMd). And the twisted "Charmilles" sculpture (right, upper corner) is one James did last year. He ran it with what is called Charmilles' "turn-while-burn" EDM capabilities, in which the B-axis of the EDM machine is rotating while the wire is cutting in the X, Y, and Z axes. He says a collegue of his wrote the program to cut the sculpture of the head (center, below) on a 5-axis Mikron high-speed milling machine. The machine cut the head in the X, Y, and Z axes, as well as rotationally in the B and C axes.