Surface Wizard

SurfaceWIZARD™ is a recent EDM innovation from Makino, providing exceptional surface quality in EDM applications where parts have variable shape thickness or sudden changes in thickness, such as a stepped part. It also produces excellent results when cutting through a cross-drilled hole or other details. This technology helps improve performance in difficult, real world production of medical, aerospace, and other EDM parts.

Before SurfaceWIZARD, burning parts of this kind would often leave “witness” lines —the telltale lines left at the transition from one-step thickness to the next. To remove witness lines, a part would require either bench work or secondary operations, creating increased costs and slowing deliveries.

SurfaceWIZARD technology virtually eliminates witness lines and maintains part straightness.

Typical Causes of Witness Lines:
  • Abrupt changes in work piece thickness, especially at sharp corner transitions.
  • The machine adapting to changes of flushing and electrical discharge characteristics.
  • Transitions heavily tax and sometimes confuse the adaptive control technology of many machine tools.
  • Witness lines can occur during both sealed and detached nozzle conditions.
Visible witness lines
Features of SurfaceWIZARD:
  • Minimizes the witness lines that occur at material thickness and stepped changes.
  • Eliminates wire break issues.
  • Provides improved part straightness.
  • Achieves a higher quality and more consistent surface finish.
  • Suppresses errors caused by changes in machining condition variables by employing new generator and adaptive control technologies.

Witness lines eliminated with SurfaceWIZARD
EDMmatters Blog
To keep up with the latest in Makino’s EDM developments and processes, check out www.EDMmatters.com.

A free online seminar discussing SurfaceWIZARD is available here in the Makino Online Seminar Library.


SurfaceWIZARD helps maintain accuracy, especially in stepped parts.