machining Aluminium Tips?

[Zeeflyboy]

Thank you. Ill have a play with the settings. Here are my settings for the current part i was practising on.

Yeah so I would reduce that optimal load down to something around 0.8mm and increase your maximum step down to the tool diameter to start with (so 4mm here). This will engage more of the cutter length but reduce the amount it's trying to move into the part on each pass. The way you have it set up currently it's the bottom 0.5mm of the tool that will be doing all the cutting and you'll wear it out much more quickly.

Keep the optimal load low as this will help with your lack of rigidity. I rarely use anything more than 1mm on my machine which is a 6040 with linear rails.

If doing slot type clearing like in your video, try selecting "both ways" from the milling direction drop down. It means you aren't wasting time with a travel move each time it goes across the slot and can save a lot of time on those sort of operations. Just make sure you are leaving eg 0.2mm stock in the radial direction and then run a clean up contour to finish the edge.