Well that didn't end well...

[Dangle_kt]

super excited I had found a bit of old aluminium to try my new novamill on.

ordered some t nuts and clamps (clamp was WAY too big...), some er16 collets (bought a whole set of 10...stupid, most I'll never use) and a few smallish 3 flute end mills for alu. I don't have a C spanner, so couldn't swap them out so I was running the old small end mill that it came with, maybe 3mm...so nothing massive.

It all arrived and I set about jogging the machine about a bit, stopping and starting the spindle etc.

I had a simple program that I ran with no tool in. just a simple square.

I then tried to zero the machine, using a piece of paper I could figure out Z (tool offset i think the button was called) but couldn't figure out how to zero X and Y... (if anyone knows how to do this on VR milling I'd be grateful), I also don't think the toopl was set up properly in the tool library - I need to look at this more.

Set the speed to 1000rpm, and feed to 300 - no idea i this is any good or not, but seemed a sensible start rate as thats what the seller I bought it off was using.

anyway, I shifted the work piece so I could run the the program without crashing, set it to run at z10 above and it went fine.

so then I tried to jog down manually, and did a first tiny side mill into the material, I was jogging at 0.05mm so I was hardly blowing chips everywhere, but was really pleased to have made my first tiny mark on the world of milling.

next I jogged to the middle and then tried a little plunge, same idea, tiny steps into the material, then jogged sideways a couple of mm - all worked ok...

So I figured I'd re run the program but just touching the surface.

so changed the program to run at z1, worked great. (which I think means it runs 1mm above the zero - stock top)

So feeling bold, I reset it to run at z-1. The idea was it would plunge in 1mm, then do a simple square. (so should be 1mm into the stock?)

Well, 1mm plunge was either too much, or my speeds/feeds was way off. so it bit into the alu for half a second then broke the end mill.

Really not 100% sure what I did wrong, though I probably should have tried to run the program at z-.1 or something first...

I'm used to watching youtube videos with insert tools hogging out at huge speeds/feeds.

So now I have a broken end mill stuck in my easy change holder, and no C spanner to swap it out. I gave up at that point.

Looking forward to having another go, but will probably use a bigger end mill next time, calculate proper speeds and feeds, maybe alter the program to just nibble at the side of the material rather than plunge - though I'll need to figure out how to zero X and Y first.

On wards!