[kirker912]

I'm trying to saddle a piece of 1" aluminum round stock to mate to another piece of 1" round stock. I first made my own g code that was very conservative and took forever to run. Then I checked it against code produced by solidcam and solidcam made big deep cuts!

I am cutting with a 3/4" TIN 4 flute end mill. I origionally ran it at 2000rmp and have now reduced it to 1000 because I found aluminum attached to the endmill after a couple passes.

Could someone give me an example of how they would write their g-code? I tried to run the following code produced by solidcam and it was too much for my machine (x3 with cnc conversion). Or atleast I felt it was too much because it produced a lot more vibration than I wanted and I shut it down.

G0 X0.4 Y-0.5 Z0.75
Z0.579
G1 Z0.245 F2
X-0.123 F4
G3 X-0.002 Y-0.623 R0.123
G1 Y-0.377
G3 X-0.123 Y-0.5 R0.123
(NEXT LEVEL)
G0 X0.4
G1 Z-0.01 F2
X-0.123 F4
G3 X-0.002 Y-0.623 R0.123
G1 Y-0.377
G3 X-0.123 Y-0.5 R0.123
(NEXT LEVEL)
G0 X0.4
G1 Z-0.265 F2
X-0.123 F4
G3 X-0.002 Y-0.623 R0.123
G1 Y-0.377
G3 X-0.123 Y-0.5 R0.123
(NEXT LEVEL)
G0 X0.4
G1 Z-0.52 F2
X-0.123 F4
G3 X-0.002 Y-0.623 R0.123
G1 Y-0.377
G3 X-0.123 Y-0.5 R0.123
(NEXT LEVEL)
G0 X0.4 Y-0.375
G1 Z0.245 F6
X0. F4
G3 X0. Y-0.625 R-0.125
G1 X0.4
(NEXT LEVEL)
G0 Y-0.375
G1 Z-0.01 F2
X0. F4
G3 X0. Y-0.625 R-0.125
G1 X0.4
(NEXT LEVEL)
G0 Y-0.375
G1 Z-0.265 F2
X0. F4
G3 X0. Y-0.625 R-0.125
G1 X0.4
(NEXT LEVEL)
G0 Y-0.375
G1 Z-0.52 F2
X0. F4
G3 X0. Y-0.625 R-0.125
G1 X0.4

[kilowattx2]

s 7000 f20
faster faster flood it flood it

[Geof]

I am cutting with a 3/4" TIN 4 flute end mill. I origionally ran it at 2000rmp and have now reduced it to 1000 because I found aluminum attached to the endmill after a couple passes..

Coated cutters are not suitable for aluminum and four flute cutters often do not have enough chip clearance in the flutes so the chips get stuck. Try to get uncoated cutters two or three flute with a high helix in either HSS or Carbide for aluminum, and always use coolant/lubricant.

How are you approaching this? Making the notch down the side of the piece held in a vise?

If your machine can do either helical interpolation or subroutines you should be able to do this in less than ten program lines if the intersection between the two pieces of round bar has to be 90 degrees.

[kirker912]

I am laying the stock in the vice running along the x axis and extending the stock 0.7" past the vise jaws. I approach in the x direction into the end of the stock.

I am not currently setup for coolant so I use a light spray oil every once and a while. I am considering the coolant option in the future but have not decided on a system. I'm open to suggestions.

I have a few hss endmills I'll try tonight. Do you think 1000rpm is close with a non coated 2 flute endmill or should I up the rpm again?

I know I really need to learn my speeds and feeds better.

I should note that I am using Mach3.

[Geof]

Even with HSS tools you can easily run at 2000 rpm; for a 1/2" cutter that is only 260 sfm which is well below what you can cut aluminum alloys at.

[kirker912]

Just to give everyone an update. I ran another part but this time I used 3/4" HSS 2 flute at 2krpm and used some WD40 as lubricant now and then and it cut very nicely.

Thanks for all the help