Development of a High-Speed Manufacturing Method for Electroplated Diamond Wire Tools

Fixed-abrasive multi-wire sawing processes can be used to slice silicon and quartz crystal due to the introduction of resinoid diamond-wire or electroplated diamond-wire tools. The latter kind have a higher wear resistance, but have higher production costs because electroplating is time consuming. Consequently, it is impractical to use them because they are too expensive. In this paper, ultra high-speed electroplating using felt brushes is proposed for manufacturing them. A series of experiments revealed that production speed is improved 30 times and tools produced with the new process have a higher wear resistance than commercially produced tools.