Fanuc A0-1 cutting stops or fluctuates

I have a older Fanuc (1993) with a series W 16A controller. I finally got it up and running and have sued it some but mostly for thinner stuff. Burned a 1.5 inch block the other day and it cut ok but most of it was radius and was slow. It's slow anyway as I can't use the cutting tech settings for given size material as the wire breaks all of the time if I do Best I can do on the 1.5 was about 0.026" per minute. Don't have a clue if that is good or not but according to the book I should be able to run faster.

Anyway, I tried a test piece the other day that is 3.25 thick as I need to burn a punch out for the block above. I was doing a simple test as in go in .100. over .100 and back out . If burned in fine but when it started the 90 degree burn it just stopped, as in you could here it stop burning. It would start and stop but wasn't a consistent burn. I tried turning the flush up, down, adjusted tension, Adjusted the On and Off up and down and nothing. if I turned flushing down thinking maybe the water was causing the wire to wiggle it would break wire on top. Flush heavy and it would break on bottom or in the part. I'm using 0.01 wire and have just moved the contacts and all. Here are the Power settings I normally use that work. Again if I go by the book on it with the voltage and all the wire breaks.

No Load On time Off Time Servo Voltage Wire Tension Wire Feed Water Flow

1 6 20 25 1500 6 2

1 6 12 20 1300 6 2

My Water Flow will only do 1-3 with 3 being the most pressure. The regulators will go to about 8 on the scale.

I know the machine is old and it's not going to cut like a newer one but it should still do better than this I would think. Plus cut steady instead of bouncing or whatever it is doing.

Also a friend on here sent me all of the cutting tech that is supposed to be in the EDM directory on the machine. Mine sat a long time and I guess it lost it in the memory. is there a way of re loading it other than literally typing it all in?


Thanks!

How is the water condition ? Have you used wire machines before ? It is a slow process, water condition, guide condition, power feed contacts all have to be in proper condition .Start there.

I have run it some but this is the only one I have ever run and everyone I know runs Mits and they can only do so much. I had posted it on a FB group also and got some ideas from them. I did get it to cut and stay consistent and as you say the settings were way off from what I was using. Wasn't really any faster but it was cutting and not just sitting there. Not sure if I'm ready to try and burn this punch yet or not. I kept trying to back settings down and all and wound up having to bump them up some, more voltage, faster wire speed, etc. Thanks for the reply, if I get it figured out I'll follow up :)

If you don't have the cutting data tape you will have have to enter the cutting conditions thru MDI .

Looks like U indeed may have a problem with flushing.
How far are Your water jets from the material? They should be 0,2mm (or 0,008") both upper and lower.
U can set water to 3 it won't mess anything but may help a little.
Also did U check the energy blocks? Are they clean and not groved too much?
I recently cuted involute spline in material 123mm thick (~5") and it went fine with parameters from book.

You won't get huge speeds on that thickness of material. .026 thou per min isn't fast but not slow either, on an older machine anyway. I have a W1 (1990) and I don't get much faster speeds on very thick material. Depends on material, what material are you cutting? You'll get problems on voltages on Alu for instance.

As others have mentioned, watch the top pot distance, but also make sure your cutting piece is flat. The EDM settings are important, they govern everything about your cutting. An expert we've used before said you could download your EDM data, just like the parameters, although I haven't proved that yet.
My machine is down at the moment but from memory (hopefully right), my settings are as follows (left a few out, can't remember them all):

No Load Voltage - 6
On Time - 8
Off Time - 50 (if I'm cutting easy and don't have to worry about time) down to 20 (if I'm running a production job)
Servo Voltage - 12
Tension - 1200

Sometimes you have to ease the machine into a job on higher off time and then bring it down to your desired setting, depends on the job.

We run 0.3mm wire. If I run 0.25 wire I have to set tension to 1000. Do you mean 0.1mm wire? If so your tension is way too high. Not sure what the tension would be on 0.1 wire but it would have to be lower than 1000 for sure. 0.3/0.25 wire thickness is the norm I would say.

Edit: Unless you were meaning 0.01", imperial. That's 0.25 metric. Try 1000 tension.

As also mentioned, watch your carbide blocks. Mine are round and I have to rotate them every now and then as it does directly affect its cutting ability.

I find your water flow odd, ours is older and I have up to 15 on water.

Can't think of anything else for the moment.