Milling Aluminium - too fast?

[magicniner]

Gary,
With a perfect machine, yes. Calculators will assume industrial machine quality, power, rigidity and spindle TIR plus near perfect lube & chip clearance, an air nozzle on the cutter and the occasional dab of WD is usually a big help on small cutters in aluminium jobs.

I'd suggest you CAM your job with those settings and then run a test, start off with the feed reduced somewhat on your controller, 60% or so, and see how it goes, if it's running smoothly you can move towards 100% feed in steps, some jobs will run faster, some slower, keep a work book with a section logging the ideal settings for the cutters and materials you use.

- Nick

[GaryWilliams]

Hi Nick,

Yes, all that makes sense. I have a tin of WD40 by the cnc. I'll start at 25mm/min as you suggest and see how I go from there. I have a pack of 10x1mm end mills so I should be able to get to the end of the job :)

Thanks

Gary