Tool Life Expectations?

[Washout]

Cool - that gives me a target for now in terms of tool life from where I am now.

I'm certainly expecting the better compressor to help, as I'll not have slots full of cut chips - although they'll all be stuck in what's left of my hair I expect ;-)

I'll buy some serated edge cutters to play with - they are often called rippers?

I've shied away from 3 flute cutters due to the previous frustrations and lack of feed-rate I could get, but will have a go again now my machine is a lot smoother than it was due to Christmas hols maintenance and the new controller board, which I should have up and running tomorrow.

Luckily the parts I'm cutting for a customer can be left at the rough stage, as they are for a sub-frame to chassis mount and hence buried in the bowels of an engine bay away from public view. He is well happy with the 2 I have shipped already (especially as I can sell them cheaper than the OEM) :-) even if I need to charge a cutter for each part, which with extended tool life over what I have currently I shouldn't have to do. Of course there are many parts which are not so hidden I need the finishing pass on......

BTW - is that tool life using "normal" toolpaths or iMachining/HSM? There are some stunning youtube vids of the latter in steels albeit on what must be very rigid moving bed mills rather than the gantry type and they are claim 70%+ better tool life - shame the continental company that makes the software is not more Google/Trimble rather than Autodesk in terms of price point ;)

[JAZZCNC]

BTW - is that tool life using "normal" toolpaths or iMachining/HSM? There are some stunning youtube vids of the latter in steels albeit on what must be very rigid moving bed mills rather than the gantry type and they are claim 70%+ better tool life - shame the continental company that makes the software is not more Google/Trimble rather than Autodesk in terms of price point ;)

No that's conventional cutting and yes the I-machining does indeed improve tool life massively but like you say it's resoanably hard on the machine if run at the higher settings but it can still be fine on even larger gantry machine like mine.
Here's a rough shaky video of my machine doing a little, these are just roughing passes, was finished with 4mm and conventional wall & floor paths. This was level 2 and theres 8 levels plus turbo mode.!! The DOC is 7.5mm but only because flute length was only 10mm other wise it would have done it full depth 15mm just has easy and at same feed etc. CNC Stepper spacers using i-machinine toolpaths - YouTube

This is the finished part just off the machine.