Hi all,
I have a question for you all. I have a job where there are numerous small slots (1mm, 1.5mm width) in the face of a rectangular titanium part. The depth of the slots is about 1mm. Some of the slots have contoured radiuses so slotting saw/woodruff cutters may not always be the best option. I have quite a few parts to machine and am looking to buy the tooling/machines to do the job right. Fixturing is vacuum fixture.
I want to optimize the process to get cycle time down. Conventional methods would be to use HSM and climb mill and rough the slots in axial steps of .005" - .010" with the tiny endmills and leave material radially and axially for a finishing operation. However, I am trying to save time and money and want to rough/finish the slots in 1 pass on the mill with minimal burrs.
I am having difficulties with the small 1mm, 1.5mm endmills holding up and will have to dial in the feeds and speeds and endmill selection. Chips sometimes wrap up around the endmills and cause them to break and the shear amount of material being removed with the small endmill in one pass is causing the endmill to break unfortunately. But I am trying to come up with a solution. Also, I am using synergy 735 coolant.
I am leaning more towards the 3 flute and 4 flute variable helix coolant thru endmills since they are a little more stout than the 2 flute endmills. I am buying bull endmills and they last longer than the square endmills but want even more performance. I'm curious - would a cubic boron nitride (CBN) or whiskered ceramic endmill hold up better for this application than a tungsten carbide endmill? They are certainly more expensive but am unsure if they would be right for the job. Any thoughts?
What else would you suggest? Some micro machining tips and suggestions for good endmill brands for mico machining would be much appreciated. I was leaning towards Micron, Guhring, and Emuge endmills but was wondering what others here thought? Possibly a custom ground CBN or whiskered ceramic rougher/finisher combo endmill?
I considered ram EDM for the part but the logistics of it and the cost of the electrodes and the replacement factor of the electrode doesn't make economic sense for our application.
Additionally, the part sometimes distorts after machining. One solution is to rough the entire part, stress relieve it in the heat treat oven, and re-fixture and re-machine to finish the part, but this would take too much time. Any thoughts of how to reduce warpage in the part? Vacuum does help suck the part down during machining, but warpage can be a problem after removing the part from the fixture.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Chris
I have a question for you all. I have a job where there are numerous small slots (1mm, 1.5mm width) in the face of a rectangular titanium part. The depth of the slots is about 1mm. Some of the slots have contoured radiuses so slotting saw/woodruff cutters may not always be the best option. I have quite a few parts to machine and am looking to buy the tooling/machines to do the job right. Fixturing is vacuum fixture.
I want to optimize the process to get cycle time down. Conventional methods would be to use HSM and climb mill and rough the slots in axial steps of .005" - .010" with the tiny endmills and leave material radially and axially for a finishing operation. However, I am trying to save time and money and want to rough/finish the slots in 1 pass on the mill with minimal burrs.
I am having difficulties with the small 1mm, 1.5mm endmills holding up and will have to dial in the feeds and speeds and endmill selection. Chips sometimes wrap up around the endmills and cause them to break and the shear amount of material being removed with the small endmill in one pass is causing the endmill to break unfortunately. But I am trying to come up with a solution. Also, I am using synergy 735 coolant.
I am leaning more towards the 3 flute and 4 flute variable helix coolant thru endmills since they are a little more stout than the 2 flute endmills. I am buying bull endmills and they last longer than the square endmills but want even more performance. I'm curious - would a cubic boron nitride (CBN) or whiskered ceramic endmill hold up better for this application than a tungsten carbide endmill? They are certainly more expensive but am unsure if they would be right for the job. Any thoughts?
What else would you suggest? Some micro machining tips and suggestions for good endmill brands for mico machining would be much appreciated. I was leaning towards Micron, Guhring, and Emuge endmills but was wondering what others here thought? Possibly a custom ground CBN or whiskered ceramic rougher/finisher combo endmill?
I considered ram EDM for the part but the logistics of it and the cost of the electrodes and the replacement factor of the electrode doesn't make economic sense for our application.
Additionally, the part sometimes distorts after machining. One solution is to rough the entire part, stress relieve it in the heat treat oven, and re-fixture and re-machine to finish the part, but this would take too much time. Any thoughts of how to reduce warpage in the part? Vacuum does help suck the part down during machining, but warpage can be a problem after removing the part from the fixture.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Chris
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