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Machine makers are expanding what medical manufacturers can do with electrical discharge machining while refining the process itself
Ilene Wolff Contributing Editor “Y
ou guys are crazy!” That’s what Makino EDM product line manager Brian Pfluger was told—loudly—by a medical-industry customer after Pfluger recommended he use coated wire to make a custom
housing for cancer treatment machines. Coated wire costs twice as much as uncoated, standard brass wire, so its use in the client’s application would increase manufacturing costs by about $100.
But, as Pfluger demonstrated to the red-faced client, the coated wire used in conjunction with Makino’s (Auburn Hills, MI) high-energy applied technology—or HEAT—would make a 60-hour job into a 34-hour task: A cost-benefit analysis