How to drill faster in brass

[Boyan Silyavski]

Or would using a drill will be faster? Instead of a milling cutter?

[Lee Roberts]

Or would using a drill will be faster? Instead of a milling cutter?

I would have thought so, the right tool for the job and all that?

Milling cutters are for cutting sideways no?

.Me

[ptjw7uk]

You should also check the drills geometry as a normal drill used on brass can break as it will pull into the hole, possibly not that relevant on a cnc machine as the drill will be restrained by the z axis.
Normally if you drill a lot of brass you can remove the cutting edge with a 'stone'.

Peter

[Boyan Silyavski]

I had a talk with the HSMadvisor maker, so it seems i had that functionality but did not know how to find it.

So according to the calculator it seems drill / HSS/ or mill/carbide/ is almost the same feed rate. But if drill is cobalt or carbide then 1.5x faster. 1000mm/min and 1500mm /min respectively.

I use the general option " Other non ferrous alloys" in stead of "low lead brass " or similar as the latest give me too slow feed , slower than aluminum. So it seems my brass is different, as i know for a fact that it machines and drills much faster than aluminum.

Will experiment tomorrow to see how fast it could go in real life and report back.

[magicniner]

Boyan,
I'd definitely use a drill bit, not a milling cutter,
Regards,
Nick

[sinnsvak]

And pecking could be reduced to short-stops to just break the chips.

[Boyan Silyavski]

Boyan,
I'd definitely use a drill bit, not a milling cutter,
Regards,
Nick

I will buy, but unfortunately have to order from the net and wait for them, as i live in a very small tourist town . So from calcs it seems carbide drills would be best. Even faster with parabolic ones, whatever that is.

And pecking could be reduced to short-stops to just break the chips.

I was thinking something similar. Though at the end decided to use no peching following the HSMAdvisor prescription, see snip above where says " pecking not necessary.



So instead of wasting more time thinking, today i tested the HSMAdvisor suggestions. 18000rpm, 3mm 2 flute carbide end mill, ~40IPM or 1000mm/min. I started reducing to 30% the feed to see what happens, then raised slowly to 70 , then 100%.




Hat down to the HSMAdviser. Drilled like cheese. At the suggested speeds and feeds all noise disappeared. You could see from video how smoothly all went. I think for DIY machine to drill 15 holes 9 mm deep in metal for <20 seconds all, is a quite an achievement. At least in my world.


I would use the chance to recommend again HSMAdviser. The support is great. I have the 3 year subscription. The guy updates the program constantly and every 2 updates or so resets the trial counter, so it could be used almost on trial. Plus i see now that he decided to let you have full functionality once a subscription expires . With some HP restriction. I am not affiliated in any way, just think that its a great tool worth the money.