In a bumpy economy, machine job shops face many challenges. So its particularly frustrating when there is work that can be brought through the door but not the right equipment with which to do it.

Farmington, Connecticut's Apex Machine Tool found itself in that situation. Then, in late 2001, Apex purchased a Charmilles Robofil 2030SI wire-EDM. Now, thanks to the precise wire cutting capability of that machine, Apex has been able to attract a fair amount of surgical business that requires small, inside corner radiuses.

"Because of the way the economy is, we've found that we've had to go after other niches of business and one of the things that we went after was small wire work," says Paul Rogers, Apex's wire machine foreman. "We've gone to very reliable and predictable cutting with three-thousandths wire," Rogers continues, "and that has opened up a new market for us that we've never been able to achieve with our other equipment."

Apex, a division of Edac Technologies, primarily builds precision tools such as gages and deposit molds. There are 114 employees, 74 of whom are involved in manufacturing. The wire department consists of five employees who do their own programming and set-ups.

The standard Robofil 2030SI machines accept wire ranging from 50 to 300 microns in diameter and have an optional add-on that enables the use of 30 micron wire. No more than a matter of minutes is required to adjust from one wire width to another Ð only the closed wire guides need to be changed.

With the Robofil 2030SI, Apex can now do mold inserts that require the small, inside corner radiuses. The company had experimented with the wire but had always backed away from it. "We weren't able to do it easily enough," Rogers concluded.

Jim Arpaia, President of Connecticut Machinery, is a Charmilles distributor and has been working with Apex for 20 years. He knew that the Robofil 2030SI was the ideal high-end, accurate machine for doing surgical parts and a successor of the popular Robofil 2020 that Apex also has.

Arpaia believes the Robofil 2030SI has the fastest and most reliable threader in the EDM market. "This machine is known for its threading capability and especially threading what we call the 'curf.' In other words, normally you can't rethread through the slot that the wire makes if you break a wire. You usually have to go back to the starting position. The 2030 SWI is the only machine on the market that has the ability to thread through the curf and that saves a heckuva lot of time because you don't have to start over."

Rogers says the 2030SI auto-threads three-thousandths wire very well. He also is quick to mention another of the machine's attributes that he likes. "A lot of the punches and die assemblies in the semi-conductor business run on very small clearances between the punch and the die," he says. "The geometry of the machine as it's taking corners has to be there. You can't have any clips in the corners, otherwise you're going to miss your clearances going in the radiuses."

"In the old days, you might have stood there with a punch and kept on cranking out the wire until the punch fit nice in the die when you were running a one-tenth clearance. Now, we just dial in the numbers and we cut it and things fit. It's much more efficient, it allows us to be more competitive, and it's given us better quality."

The Robofil 2030SI creates surface finishes comparable to those obtained by grinding. This is true even on materials that demand optimal surface integrity like steel and carbide. The Surface Integrity (SI) generator insures longer tool life and the software simplifies setup, constantly monitors job conditions, and adjusts settings automatically for optimal performance.

Apex now has four Charmilles wire EDM's and three sinker EDM's. On the wire side, in addition to the Robofil 2020 and its successor, 2030SI, there is also the Robofil 4020, and the Robofil 230, which Apex also purchased in late 2001.

It's no coincidence that Apex's last two purchases have been wire machines. Management has made a conscious effort to emphasize the wire side of the business.

"We want to be known as more of a wire house than we've been known in the past," says Apex's Jeff LeDuc. "We have kept the wire machines busy without advertising that fact. Now, we're trying to market the wire aspect more."

Sinkers include the Roboform 40, Roboform 4000, and Manual D 20.

Rogers himself was unfamiliar with Charmilles when he joined the company in 1993. At the time, Apex only had one Charmilles machine, the Manual D 20. Now, Apex has a comfortable feel for working with Charmilles. They certainly perform their due diligence by canvassing other manufacturers and requiring test cuts. But Apex keeps coming back to Charmilles.

"The tolerances of the machines have been dependable," Rogers says. "We've had only small amounts of downtime, especially for a machine that's as complicated as a wire machine. And we get tolerances that are predictable. When we put in a size, we get that size back. Another advantage we have is that we don't have to get used to different controls now."

Service after the sale has been strong, too, according to Rogers. "When those wire machines first came in," he says, "when we were introducing new equipment and new technology to people, the help we got over the phone was unbelievable. Now, when we call with an applications question, we get answers back. 99 times out of 100, it's within an hour."