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I took a job as a tool & die maker while in college and have a couple years of experience on Mitsubishi and Sodick wire EDM machines. They are certainly not fast at doing what they do. But, one can produce parts that would be extremely difficult or impossible to make otherwise. I often maintained tolerances of +/-0.00005 on some of the aerospace parts I worked on. Normally, most wire EDM machines are setup for .008 brass wire. Some machines can use up to .012 or .013 wire for heavy cuts. Even then, you will probably only get around .25 inches per minute depending upon the material and it's thickness. Although, there may be larger machines that are capable of larger wire and faster speeds as my experience goes back about 15 years.
That being said, if the quality of the cut is unimportant I would recommend waterjetting instead. It is a much faster and cheaper process and can be found more readily than wire EDM. You can even get a fairly nice finish with a waterjet too.
Best of luck to you, and let us know what you decide upon.
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Brian
1981 930
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