able to produce 60 sparks per second. Later machines based on their design used vacuum tube circuits that were able to produce thousands of sparks per second, significantly increasing the speed of cutting. Wire-cut EDM The wire-cut type of machine arose in the 1960s for making tools (dies) from hardened steel. The tool electrode in wire EDM is simply a wire. To avoid the erosion of the wire causing it to break, the wire is wound between two spools so that the active part of the wire is constantly changing. The earliest numerical controlled (NC) machines were conversions of punched-tape vertical milling machines. The first commercially available NC machine built as a wire-cut EDM machine was manufactured in the USSR in 1967. Machines that could optically follow lines on a master drawing were developed by David H. Dulebohn's group in the 1960s at Andrew Engineering Company for milling and grinding machines. Master drawings were later produced by computer numerical controlled (CNC) plotters for greater accuracy. A wire-cut EDM machine using the CNC drawing plotter and optical line follower techniques was produced in 1974. Dulebohn later used the same plotter CNC program to directly control the EDM machine, and the first CNC EDM machine was produced in 1976. Commercial wire EDM capability and use has advanced substantially during recent decades. Feed rates have increased and surface finish can be finely controlled. Generalities Electrical discharge machining is a machining method primarily used for hard metals or those that would be very difficult to machine with traditional techniques. EDM typically works with materials that are electrically conductive, although methods have also been proposed for using EDM to machine insulating ceramics. EDM can cut intricate contours or cavities in pre-hardened steel without the need for heat treatment to soften and re-harden them. This method can be used with any other metal or metal alloy such as titanium, hastelloy, kovar, and inconel. Also, applications of this process to shape polycrystalline diamond tools have been reported. EDM is often included in the "non-traditional" or "non-conventional" group of machining methods together with processes such as electrochemical machining (ECM), water jet cutting (WJ, AWJ), laser cutting and opposite to the "conventional" group (turning, milling, grinding, drilling and any other process whose material removal mechanism is essentially based on mechanical forces). Ideally, EDM can be seen as a series of breakdown and restoration of the liquid dielectric in-between the