EDM & Specialty Precision Machining Estimating, For Work That Doesn't Fit a Standard Toolpath
Milled and turned features priced from your own machines, with a consistent, structured place to enter wire EDM, sinker EDM, and hole-drilling EDM time.
The Problem
EDM work is often the hardest part of a job to estimate accurately — burn time depends on material, depth, and finish requirements in ways that don’t reduce to a simple rule of thumb.
Parts that combine conventional machining with EDM operations get priced in two different ways, and reconciling them into one number is manual and inconsistent.
High-precision work — tight tolerances, hard materials, complex internal geometry — leaves little room to absorb an inaccurate estimate on either the machining or the EDM side.
How Micro Estimate Estimates EDM & Specialty Precision Machining Work
Real cycle time for conventional machined features.
For any milling or turning on the part — pockets, bores, contours — Micro3D reads the 3D file and uses SolidWorks’ Automatic Feature Recognition to identify those features. CAMWorks generates a toolpath from your shop’s own machines, tools, and speeds/feeds, producing real, shop-specific cycle time for that portion of the job.
Structured entry for wire, sinker, and hole-drilling EDM.
EDM operations don’t have an automated way to read burn time off a drawing, so Micro Estimate gives estimators a consistent, structured place to enter them — by material, depth, and finish requirement — instead of pricing EDM time from memory.
One estimate across both.
Conventional machining and EDM operations on the same part live in one routing, so the quote reflects the full job rather than two separately priced pieces of work.
What's Included
Automatic Feature Recognition and CAMWorks toolpath generation for conventional machined features
Structured cost entry for wire EDM, sinker EDM, and hole-drilling EDM
Material libraries for hardened tool steels and exotic alloys
Configurable labor rates, overhead, and margin rules
Customer quote letters, cost breakdowns, shop travelers, and routing documentation
Who It’s For
Shops specializing in wire EDM, sinker EDM, and high-precision machining — whether as a dedicated EDM house or as a specialty operation inside a larger precision machine shop.