After the design of the electrodes, the data must be passed on to the production. If the NC programming is done in a third party CAM system the CAD-data must be saved in an exchange format if no direct interface is available. In this case established formats like IGES or STEP are commonly used. However, it's a tedious and time consuming process for large assemblies with many individual electrodes.
SMARTElectrode provides a simple dialog that can be used for exporting data for EDM programming but can be used for data backup and conversion also.
Execute following steps for the ouput:
1. | Open electrode assembly | ![]() |
2. | Open Output UI | ![]() |
3. |
|
![]() |
4. |
All electrode models will be saved as STEP-file to selected directory. SMARTElectrode will use the csys defined in configuration as reference for the export. |
![]() |
Open export options file export.cfg in configuration\export\STEP and edit the value for SE_EXPORT_DEFAULT_DIR.
SMARTElectrode will now save all step-files to the new directory.
For example all models have a csys CAM_CSYS in the electrode center on the bottom of the frame. Open export options file export.cfg in configuration\export\STEP and add option SE_EDM_BACKUP_CSYS and add the value CAM_CSYS.
SMARTElectrode will now use defined CAM_CSYS as reference for the STEP-export.
Stay tuned to learn how to create a custom color format for electrodes and CAM in one of the next posts.