New Build 1000x600x200mm (newbie)

[JAZZCNC]

Hi Khalid,

Nice to see it working. 4 flute cutters are no good for aluminium because has you found out you can't remove chips fast enough so they get re-cut chips causeing cutter heating of material and tool. Your very lucky you didn't go into melt down and Gum up the cutter with those feeds/speeds.

My standard setup is to use 3 flute Carbide Ripping cutters for roughing leaving 0.35mm wall material cutting approx 40-50% Dia DOC and feed rate between 900 -1600mm/min. Spindle speed 14000-24000rpm all depending on material grade and how big a hurry I'm in.

I Finish with a Full depth pass using single flute HSS to remove the 0.35mm material. Any where between 9000-12000rpm and feedrate 600-900mm/min.

When cutting Aluminium there is NO one cutter or feedrate/DOC etc suits all and each grade of material cuts different, infact the same grade can differ from batch to batch. Lower grades also have hard and soft spots which can catch you out if cutting parameters are close to max'd out.

So for this reason you'll find your constantly tweaking with settings to suit your machine and material being used at the time.
In all cases you need at least blown air cooling to clear chips and ideally you want some form of coolant, mist, odourless mist or flood all work good.

Another tip is don't use cutters any wider than 8mm if slot cutting at any depth has the cutting forces increase hugely and stress the spindle/machine. Wide cutters are good for shallow surfacing or deep edge milling with lower step over. Just avoid deep slot milling with them.