Slotting Aluminum - Tips, Tricks, Speeds & Feeds | WW235
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- Опубліковано 20 чер 2024
- Slotting on a CNC machine requires reliable speeds & feeds!
Using a new tool from Helical Solutions, let's nail down recipes that work in a variety of machines. We'll also cover best practices and tips and tricks to help solve your slotting troubles. Let us know in the comments below if this video helped you!
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Links for this video
Helical Solutions
1/4" Corner Radius - 35° Helix, Variable Pitch, Chipbreaker Rougher
bit.ly/2RXL8pF
Slotting Aluminum Speeds & Feeds | bit.ly/2B76ruH
How to Plunge Mill | bit.ly/2tD9pn0
High Feed Milling | bit.ly/2CP9NCv
Cheap Workholding | bit.ly/2o8ZUrW
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Reach us / CNC Info:
Speeds & Feeds: provencut.com
Download Fusion 360: www.dpbolvw.net/click-9255839...
Online Fusion 360 Training: bit.ly/LearnFusion360
Hands-On CNC Classes: www.nyccnc.com/events
SMW Products: saundersmachineworks.com/
CNC Resources: www.nyccnc.com 5 Reasons to Use a Fixture Plate on Your CNC Machine: bit.ly/3sNA4uH - Наука та технологія
Excellently covered, as usual; Thanks, John!
Horizontal mill & HPC FTW, make gravity your friend. I will have to try that chip breaker endmill. Helical makes fantastic cutters, for sure.
Great video! Learned some new tricks. Thank you!
Actually I was watching Short Circuit just a minute ago but paused it to watch this video. I'm looking forward to the Johnny 5 build!
I love Helical’s chipbreakers. Probably my favorite tool from them
If you do have to slot deep, those reduced shank short-flute end mills from Harvey are a life saver. A ramping strategy really benefits you there too.
Agreed!
Good on you for sharing your experience with everyone, and it appears we agree that a waterjet is a pretty good roughing cutter.
Amazing guys, thanks for sharing! hope to put this on practice on the machining floor
Slotting is just a quickie and not the full 2 minutes. The tool will want to pull into the up milling side and deflect away from the down milling side making a crooked slot. In my experience if you don't have enough coolant to turn that slot into a river along with some finely tuned cutting data for your tools, keep some pliers around (you'll know what to do with them when it's time)! I've seen a 2 ton 4kW knee mill starting to umph while I was approaching a corner on a 30mm deep slot with 14mm roughing end mill. The sound change is very noticeable but what surprised me the most was that the 2 kg piece of aluminum went from cold to untouchable within less than 10mm of travel until I had to stop everything and use the pliers... My tip is if the part geometry allows for it (open slot), tip the part sideways and use a disc milling cutter. You can go a lot deeper without much fuss.
Thanks for doing videos like this.
Yes! I have been waiting for that video ever since you mentioned on the podcast that you are working on it.
thanks!
Thank you John for your great informative videos. is there a 1/16" diameter end mill that you would recommend for cutting 1/8" 6061 Aluminum?
So useful. As ALWAYS! thank you for what you guys do
Good stuff John!
ATB, Robin
Have you tried the 1/4" TAS from Lakeshore Carbide for slotting? I use them and they rock!
The chips off of the chipbreaker look beautiful.
Testing the 3/8 one would really help me out with my parts.
Hope to work out some new more effective machining strategies with my 770m arriving tomorrow, I have been doing my aluminum products on my cnc router and it works, and has worked for the last idk 30 months, but as my demand continues to grow, the router became very inefficient and I just couldn't keep up with orders forcing me to miss out on countless job shop opportunities for my router, so many disadvantages when shit got real and I had to start manufacturing large quantities of small aluminum parts on my router setup, so the 770 should allow me to run these parts all day while job shopping on my router at the same time, while also helping do upgrades for my router with less downtime. So excited to unbox the 770m tomorrow morning!
We do a job regularly that we use a 1/4" 2 flute Garr end mill 5/16 deep, 12000 rpm 100 IPM in 6061. One end mill will typically do a 3000-4000 feet of cutting. We tried a variety of 2 and 3 flute end mills Garr, Niagara, Harvey and we kept coming back to that one.
Looks good John, gonna try that for my next video. Just did some slotting tests yesterday (see my last video), but i really think i can go harder with my machine!
Hi John! I love watching this channel as you bring so much enthusiasm and a good attitude to the videos; even if the subject isn’t necessarily one I’d be interested in, I still watch. I have a question about slotting. Just as you can peck drill, can you peck slot? That is, can you advance the tool along the path, then periodically “back up” for a short period to help the material and the tool bit cool off, then continue along? Also, what if you don’t want the outside corners of the slot to have a sharp, 90-degree edge? Can Fusion360 generate a slotting toolpath with rounded edges?
John, a follow-up video slotting with TSC end mills coming soon?
Excellent video
sweet, i've recently been challenged by running a cnc router on aluminum the last few weeks. i have some full slotting recipes that have been working, but i just started to make a "pocket" around my part to adaptive out my "slot" i usually make it 1.6x diameter of the cutter.
John, Have you tried a higher quality tool holder in this? I personally have slotted at 100 Cubic inches / min on a CV 40 Haas VF2. Kennametal Hydroforce with Safelock are king in applications like this.
Great video! You did an earlier one called stop slotting the stupid way, but you seem to have gone away from the recommendations again. In our prototyping we use a Haas TM1-P and for the machines we manufacture 10mm (little more than 3/8) width slots at a little more than 1½ inch deep in ALU and POM are the things we need to produce repeatedly.
What is the best guess for tools and strategy for say 1 foot long, 1½ inch deep slots
This comment section is so nice, no slotshaming or anything!
Lately I’ve found myself slotting with very small endmills, 5/32 being on the larger side. I found I get the best accuracy slotting with them if I go about 150% of the tools diameter deep into the material. I’ve also started doing my “roughing” cuts with my endmill in a regular ER collet so I can blast the TSC.
What do you think about matrix clamping system?
I'd love that plate what was cut on the hass...could do an awesome resin pour through it....
Great video buddy ! I hate the slotting of aluminum...
John, are you still using Qualichem 251C in your fogbuster? I am really, really sick of the rusting issues I'm getting using Koolmist even in fairly high concentrations. If you are using the Qualichem, where do you recommend I get it? You used to sell small sample concentrate quarts...
thanks I'll get a gallon next order from them.
It also seems lower flute count helps with chip evac, even though you lessen tool rigidity. 3 flutes is still probably better than 2 in aluminum, but 4 flutes seems ideal for steel. I havent had good luck slotting with 5 fl in steel, but 5 beats 4 for adaptive anyday.
When you say ramp down 10% of tool Di do you have a max ramp angle? Do you have any recommendations for ramp angle? This comes into play when doing tight slotting (like a helix) and when the end mill has to plunge very fast. We have always done x100 the step down converted to angle. So a .125 ramp step would be a 12.5 max angle. Curious if you have any angle recommendations.
You don't need to calculate the angle. If you enter the maximum step-down which results in a shallower angle then the entered one fusion will automatically use the smaller angle.
@@ChristophPech When your ramp is very short and your step down is relatively large your EM will end up traveling down very quickly, I've broken many tools not catching this. The angle serves as a safety net preventing you from making a spiral that is too aggressive (even if your step down is still 50% tool DI). I understand that 99% of the time the step down will be less, but im asking about the 1%.
My experience whenever you want maximum material removal flood coolant is a win!
At work we are slotting 1.4301 stainless whit Sandvick cutter (diameter 4mm-0,16inch/ 3 flutes whit a bit of radius)
we are running 7600 rpm(Vc100) and feed 296mm/min-11.654 in/min (fz 0,013mm/ fz 0.0005118 inch)
Depth (3mm-0.11811inch) actually (2,5mm-0.098425inch) because the tip whit radius is poking through the part.
We are using slotting to cut through the middle of the part so we dont have to machine the middle.
Is it possible to push in even more?
Would the chip breakers help?
I was looking at a deep cut video I made where the cutter clogged up and I noticed that just before the sound changed, the amount of chips flying out dropped a little. I realized the chips take up a lot more room than the original material. At least 3 times as much. Therefore you have to throw 2/3 of the chips out of the channel or it builds up behind the cutter. When it gets packed, the chips can't get out of the flute and each revolution jams more until it drags around until the metal melts. It is so unpredictable because it could be ejecting 70% of the chips and running fine then it drops to 60% and the chips start packing. And it happens fast. A good source for chip volumes are manufacturers of chip compacting machines.
I'm dead impressed with modern toolpaths. But I don't have the software yet. I'm restricted to slotting....But, as demonstrated in your film, the correct cutters have no trouble at all. I use Europa (dedicated aluminium roughing cutters) and they do shift metal very efficiently. As you say, plenty of high pressure coolant to blast the swarf out. No worries.
If you "want" the software, you ought to be able to get it! Plenty of great options these days; no secret we're a fan of Fusion 360 due to large user base, low price, easy of use, and solid CAM toolpaths
@@nyccnc I'm a stubborn miller. I manipulate my hurco winmax, I control all strategies, I can play my machine like a fiddle! I appreciate you can probably use 360 in the same way.
I'm lucky enough to be working on prototypes and very small batches. (10 maximum)! Cost is a big issue. I have Delcam (featurecam), it's 10 years old now. That's bad, I know. 10 years ago I was over the moon with it.
But I watch lots of UA-cam now. I can see I'm becoming a dinosaur.
I guess Fusion toolpaths could be 25% faster unless you push your tools as hard as possible. When i started working with Fusion i reduced my programming time by at least 75% and i was programming Like a noob with fusion
@@snowsniffers Halooo... personally, most of my time is with set-ups, jigs, fixtures.... the programming is actually easy! But devising and making the tooling. That's where my time goes. Huh, I seem to be justifying my reluctance to get modern!
@@neilwoodward7336 50% of the parts in the industry are basic 2d shapes (or prismatic at worst) and another 20-30% can be done way faster with a form tool than with any modern toolpath. If you can hold it you can make it but that leaves room for an ego-trap as devising an appropriate setup is waaay more time consuming than taking the cut! You can use this to your advantage to unload some work by turning a "will you" to a "could you". By implying it's hard (and by not mentioning you know just how to do it yourself) you can get some people to do some crazy things just to prove themselves but I avoid pulling this kind of shenanigans to maintain a good relationship with friendly machines shops...LOL!
I’m in first robotics and I use a tormach 440 that the school owns, all we have are the endmills that came with the machine, the shop teacher at our school recommended 0.02 step down and it almost never works. I told him that it was probably too slow because the aluminum was gunking up on the tool, and tips for a better depth, rpm, and ipm?
the trickiest slotting problems i've had are in less than rigid setups. with aluminum, your biggest hurdle is going to be your rpm limited on that machine. run it wide open and play with your chip load if your chip load gets too low you'll load the tool up with aluminum. you will need some kind of chip evacuation, whether its flood coolant or mql air blast. even in really vibration prone setups i've been able to push 1/3 tool diameter in aluminum. try 1/4 depth to start and use some charts for your tooling material. most likely you'll want a cutter between 5/16 and 3/8 that will probably be a good balance between getting the tool to the proper sfm. try to avoid slotting though. i will try to adaptive everything that i can and then clean it up in a another operation. for outside cutting of a part, i will project the shape to a sketch, then offset the sketch 1.6x my tool diameter and extrude the shape up to make a pocket for the adaptive to machine. you can run an adaptive path so much faster than a full slot that its a hard argument to continue slotting for the outside contour of a part.
Wish we could see thermal imaging of these cuts.
I have a FLIR E60. Once I get my new shop setup (and the Tormach running) I'll shoot some video with it.
It's hard to get good thermal images of shiny things. :(
@@AndrewFrink it is not easy but with a good camera and with the emeisivity correctly adjusted, very possible. 👍
so when did chip evacuation go out the window? on the bronze mandrels I was able to double our feedrates going to airblast vs coolant. Keeping things cool is important but not having the blast for evacuation feels like turning your back on the biggest lever in this equasion.
If you use thru spindle colant the chips will get better evacuation!
Anybody with a good fusion 360 recipe for slotting with tabs in titanium? The problem is that after reaching the max ramp down right in front of a tab with the reduced ramp speed, the end mill rapids down behind the tab to the max depth and continues with full speed. No problem in aluminum, but in titanium I have to use the pliers to pull out the remainders of the €50 2mm (.08”) end mill almost every time...
i bet abom wishes you had uploaded this one last week instead lol
Someone should send this to abom 😆
I know its old - but you guys forgot the 770 details. You showed the machining, but not the recipe. 3:45
Come on John please top Off that coolant on the vf2ss. C'mon Dude...
Also 2 flute endmills work a-lot better for slotting
Do you know why it works better than single flute?
Looks like low coolant pressure on the Haas.
Did I hear him right? The mx tormach at 10,000 RPM? I thought the 1100 was 7500 RPM
5:27
John has a 1100MX prototype machine. Due to be released in winter 2018 but has been delayed until summer 2019 ☹️
@@owensparks5013 I realize his is a beta prototype and I received the delay notification on the release of the mx series from tormach as well but the 10K rpm had me scratching my chin. That would be awesome if they do release 1100mx's with 10k rpm like the 770's
So in one of your previous videos you said "Do not slot by diving your endmill deep into your material and not adaptively cutting."
What would you say to those that listened to you when you said that.
While you are deeply proud of your #instamachinist ideals this would be a situation where you were teaching people while inexperienced and just telling people to do the wrong thing. This whole video is the opposite of what you were previously saying was the wrong thing to do. You never really addressed that.
*cough* Abom *cough*
nice contents
want to be friend?
i slot up to 718 inconel bruh
The sole focus of this video is to make it last 10m 1s or more
First
you forgot the metric units
Too slow.