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S y s t e mESPRIT® covers all the bases
at Hi-Quality Carbide
Hi-Quality Carbide Tooling Inc., located inOrangeville, Ontario, specializes in small
quantities and one-of-a-kind tooling,including carbide extrusion dies, carbide
spring-forming tooling and stamping
dies, that are used in machines to makemass-produced parts for the automotive,
aerospace and medical industries. “Oneof the dies we make will make two or
three million bolts or ball joints for a car,”says Tim Middlehurst, who co-owns HiQuality Carbide with Wendy Middlehurst.
“We do lots of bearing work for the oiland gas industry and a lot of aerospacefasteners. And we specialize in spring
tools that form shaped wire springs — notjust your standard round wire springs.”
Hi-Quality was founded in 1980 andnow has 15 employees and more than
30 machines, including CNC, ID andmanual grinders, wire and sinker EDM,
and high-speed milling machines. HiQuality Carbide typically deals withsmall-quantity orders ranging from asingle piece to upwards of 20 pieces.
“Everything we do is very specialized,”says Tim. What makes Hi-Quality’s
capabilities unique are the hardness andrefractory nature of the carbide used inmost of the company’s parts. “Carbideis very difficult to work with,” Tim says.

Programming the electrode in ESPRITDP Technology Corp.
1150 Avenida Acaso | Camarillo, CA | 93012 USA
Tel: + 1 800 627 8479
Outside the US: + 1 805 388 6000
Email: esprit@dptechnology.com

For the past five years, Hi-Quality Carbide
has used ESPRIT for its wire EDM work,and now the shop uses it for milling andwill be transitioning its turning department
to ESPRIT in 2018, as well. “We wantto have a uniform software across theshop; it’s too confusing switching backand forth between programs,” says Tim.
“We asked our employees which software
they preferred. I myself like ESPRIT, andthey do, too. For wire EDM, it’s very clear
and simple. The way you program thesoftware is exactly what you’d think it
would be. It’s really easy to walk yourself
through the programming process, andit’s easy to modify existing programs.
The post processors that are available
for our Sodick and AgieCharmilles
machines are extremely accurate; theydon’t require any editing. We have theconfidence that once we post a job andplug it in, it’s good — which means a lot.”
When Hi-Quality Carbide first
implemented ESPRIT for high-speed
milling, the software presented them witha challenge. “There was no consistent
software available, that we knew of at
the time, that could do 3D compensation
for high-precision complex forms on
our 3D mill,” says Ian Kottelenberg, theshop’s foreman. “That created a very
lengthy re-programming process if wewanted to change the size of the part.
We worked closely with ESPRIT, with a
lot of back-and-forth testing.” Hi-Quality’sESPRIT programmer also worked witha Heidenhain expert to come up withthe proper math for accomplishing theoffset. After re-working and testing thesolution many times to ensure success,
ESPRIT finally delivered Hi-Quality asolution that worked. “The software is

now able to communicate consistentlywith our machine. Success!” Wendy says.
“ESPRIT works every day. It’s a solidsystem,” Tim says. “The product is very
reliable; what works one day will work
the next day. That’s sometimes not thecase with other software systems.”

Ian Kottelenberg (Shop Foreman) at left, and Tim
Middlehurst (President) at rightCopyright © 2018 DP Technology Corp.
All rights reserved.
ESPRIT is a registered trademark of
DP Technology Corp.

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