Wire EDM Machine DIY (November 2025)

 

By far the largest project I've undertaken. It started with the plan to make a sinker EDM machine using Ben Flemings plans, but during the research phase I stumbled across Baxedm and my plans changed in a big way. Firstly I must say this project is only made possble by the very cleaver man Mike at BaxEDM who is the brains behind the BX18 ARC Generator and the C-ARC motor controller.

All the plans are avaialble on BaxEDM.com and this is a great starting point. There is also a forum for help which you can access once you've brought Mike's equipment.

The other contributor that needs recognition is Werner Berry who made his own version of Mikes BaxEDM machine with some interesting design changes.

My initial starting point was to model every part and produce all the dimensioned drawings for the machine I planned to build. It was a mixture of Mike and Werners machine. In doing the complete design I could check all the parts went together but also adjust things to how I wanted to produce them. When you don't have a fully blown CNC machine shop some of the profiles and curves are not so easy to produce and in most cases not really needed, they just look nice.

It's taken 13 months to complete, working just evenings and weekends, and like most my projects I don't have loads of production photos as that takes time away from actual production. But I'll put up some photos as the build went on.

With a machine like this, building it on the fly is not an option. After modeling all the parts in 3D I then produced fully dimensioned and toleranced drawings to work from.

I chose aluminium tooling plate for the main parts so they were already to thickness to minimising machining. The majority of the other parts are made in 304 stainless steel.

DIY Wire EDM Video with BaxEDM BX18.MOV










G Clamp cut in 1/4" brass at 6mm per minute


Gear Cutting in 1.6mm brass at 12mm per minute







3D printed wire chopper which cuts the expelled wire into approx 1/2" lengths
to save space and eliminated the tangled mess when coiling it.





Aluminium tooling plate before machining

 

pivot point on the XY axis table plates. Very important addition to help with axis alignment

 

 

Welded steel frame to hold the 190lt and 85lt water tanks as well as the water filter and de-ionising filters.

 

 

 

Base frame powder coated and starting the build

 

Control cabinet wiring

Control panel

It's slowing coming together.

 

Stainless steel tank. I had this laser cut and folded as I don't have the equipment to cut and bend 2mm stainless steel. Just needed to welding it up

 

Water pumps and filter layout 

Manufacturing the EDM work table from 304 stainless steel. What a pain to keep straight with all the stresses going on.

Upper flush cup and guide assembly

Some machine parts coming together