New CNC Mill on the horizon

[JAZZCNC]

Thanks as ever Jazz :)

What would you consider a reliable spoil board material?

NOT MDF. . Lol

Phenolic Resin fibre board type material works very good but can be costly. Can get Plywood with Phenolic face which is resonably stable.
Good quality Ply wood with a liminate face can work well.
HDPE but again expensive.

[Boyan Silyavski]

Here #165 i make some comparison of different materials for bed. Have to agree with Dean that the best material i found is phenolic sheet/ for sacrificial bed/.

Furthermore if your machine is well done, you say- cut through deep to 0mm and it cuts through but without even scratching the phenol. Not so cutting aluminum though, where you have to find the sweet spot.

[fvfdrums]

Right. So we decided on the aluminium sheet with a matrix of holes in the end. After looking at parts we are likely to produce chances are we too will be using spoil board 75% of the time. So that's turning up next week. Went for 20mm thick sheet.

So all I really need to sort now before the machine can start properly cutting is the water cooling. Any suggestions on a water pump? I've found a bunch on eBay but some seem too low powered 5w solar type and others seem too high pressure ? 80psi or there abouts. Any pointers to specific pumps used recently the older posts links are now dead.

Finally. Cutters.

What's a good cutter to start with using in aluminium on a 3kw spindle? Single flute? Just want something to experiment with really

And as far as machining hardwoods I have a bunch of high quality router cutters would these be best for this application?

[fvfdrums]

Just had some problems with the x axis locking up when going at a reasonable speed. Convinced we still have a problem with the ball nuts I have taken them apart only to find 53 balls which is 18/18/17 in terms of 3 tracks.

Am I right in thinking 17 balls per track and that having too many could cause this binding at a higher speed?