so i mounted a webcam inside the housing for monitoring with the doors closed. the app can record so i did! :)

quality is poor at best, and only 16fps, but its nice and convenient for the moment until i get my HD setup somehow.

anyhow, this is a boring video, just ran the circle pocket macro in some maple. this is a second run in the same pocket, first one was covered in chips so you couldnt see what was going on.

i used a dull 3 flute m42 1/4" end mill. .25" depth, .12" stepover, 60ipm. the cut runs at 100ipm with a propper 2 flute end mill meant for wood. it worked rather perfectly and didnt even make much noise inside the cabinet.

going to do a steel part possibly tomorrow if i have time.

YouTube - kx1 circle pocket test

and the first real part:

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/830/ruined100.jpg

hmmm... anyone notice the mistake?

:p

i hand coded this thing and of course i had to screw it up. on the bright side, the machine can rip through 7/8" of maple at 50ipm without any lost steps.....

i took a video, but ill wait til tomorrow when i do it again sans coding error. these are guitar pickup rings in quartered hard maple if anyone is curious. they will be cut with a pull saw into 2 or 3 rings per stack. i can get about 5 stacks on this side of the block, and leave the other side for some fretboards.

cutting maple is also a little noisy. lots of vibration, but with the enclosure its still not much above normal speaking volume. i doubt the neighbours can hear much more than a quiet buzzing.

It doesn't look too bad man, a little wood putty and you are golden. :)

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/3968/almostfinal100.jpg


almost done the program, just needs a finish pass on the outer shape and chamfers on the edges. this is lignum vitae.. hardest and densest wood on earth. resawing this 25"x3" board ate one bandsaw blade. ironically, with my m42 3 flute aluminium cutting end mill this was actually smoother and gave less trouble than the maple. i think its because the wood is extremely waxy and lubricates the tool.

im going to cut the sides off and then flip it and mill the backside off. that seems to be the best way of dealing with the remaing stock. the maple i just buzzed down with sandpaper, but lignum vitae does sand well at all.

http://img111.imageshack.us/img111/3985/almostfinal101.jpg

some fun with a fly cutter in 6061. worked rather well. nice to see since my flycutting in steel has been a bit of a failure thus far.

YouTube - kx1 flycutting 6061

so i had some fun with aluminium, worked great. flycut with a c2 carbide tool.
milled a pocket with an m42 3 flute end mill. also worked great. i think i know what settings are good with these and they work as i expect them to.

stainless steel im having bad luck with. i cut some 304 stainless with a 5 flute coated carbide end mill. i think i had my speeds and feeds in good territory and it wored flawlessly for a few cuts. but i managed to chip the cutter teeth, and well as the edge of the flutes on a stide cut. not entirely sure how it happened. i was using a spray of coolant every few seconds on this test, perhaps it required flood?. anyhow, $28 wasted. carbide seems very fragile, i think ill only use it for aluminium from now on.

also not doing so hot with 1018. seems to mill fine with the m42 end mill, no coolant, 5k rpm. havent yet found a setting for fly cutting though that doesnt kill the tool in minutes.

blah!

:)

well, at least im having fun!


edit: well, i think i know how the 5 flute end mill broke. the tools says 350sfm is moderate load... i had 327. that was fine. says .0005 feed per tooth, i had .0008, which isnt stupid, but combined with my "mistake" it probably helped kill the tool. the end mill is designed for shallow side cutting "only", and my program (a pocket) started with a 1" long full width slot before it got into side cutting. the side cutting was also 60% of the tool diametre, which according to their data needs the suface speed derated by half and isnt really recomended. this was my mistake it seems.

so there you go: how to kill an enxpensive endmill by making a bad program.

oddly, id bought this tool to mill some O-1 tool steel, and the speeds, feeds, stepover, depth i used would have matched perfectly as long as i got rid of any slotting.





... im still having fun though :p

so after some consultation with the man at the tool store (who coincidentally runs a syil x4 at another shop), ive determined a few things.

with the right feeds, speeds, diametre and tool the nm-070 and flycut aluminium with ease. does a spectacular job in fact. ive got the cutter at 1.75" 5000rpm and 15ipm with a .005" depth per pass.

i also learned that 304 stainless sucks, and the tool i broke should work if i am careful to keep it within spec. 303 is the way to go if all i need is shiny and not specific performance.

sadly, we also determined that the nm-070 cannot flycut steel. why? because the spindle speed needs to be 300-600rpm or even lower for optimal performance and at that speed - while the machine does have enough torque to cut, it does not have the rigidity to deal with the hammering of incremental cutting.

i also learned that if you use a tool in steel, its a steel tool... cant reuse in aluminium because the edge is dulled. that and i got a few tips on regriding all these poor cutters ive ruined! yay!

:)

http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/3139/kx1flycut02.jpg

successfully flycut some steel. finish is not great due to vibration, but the surface is flat and the tool lived well enough. i dont think ill be doin that often though.

YouTube - kxt1 flycuting 1018 steel

http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/8052/kx1viseclamp101801.jpg

yay, i made something useful. its a clamp for my new 2" tool makers vise. i did this one in jog mode. now i need to write a program now to cnc 3 more.

im a bit puzzled how to part them off. i could turn it sideways and mill them off, but thats a bit of a waste of material. i imagine a slitting saw is the ideal way, but i havent got one handy. could bandsaw them and then do a clean up pass - but my bandsaw is a bit crap for metal. hmmmmm.

thoughts?

also, i statred the job with an m42 3 flute cutter. it worked well enough, but started to overheat doing the deep slot, and eventually died trying to plunge the hole. only did the hole cause i knew it was near dead anyway. so i switched to a carbide 2 flute end mill. what a difference! the finish on the side cuts is amazing, chips come of silver, runs slightly faster feeds and seems to actually deflect less on deep side cuts giving a near mirror finish. we'll see how it holds up now on the next 3.

http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/9109/kx1viseclamp101802.jpg

description in the image. video soon.

YouTube - kx1 cnc milling vise clamp in 1018 steel

its interesting to look at the video. in the slotting operations, chips are blue/black. in the side cutting silver. i think i need to redo the slotting g code with a lower rpm. the slotting is probably whats dulled the tool somewhat quickly - that or the fact that it was $11 cheapo cutter..

The K1 appears to cut steel pretty well.

The K1 appears to cut steel pretty well.

yes it does - when you do things properly :p

i'll get this all figured out soon enough.

"youhavenofish cuz youhavenowater" :) If you slow your spindle to about 750 and use a coolmist you will do better..the minute the cutter hits the steel, it looses its cutting edges and starts breaking down;cuts but cuts less effective..your program looks very good. On the hole plunges maybe U could edit it to plunge much slower the harmonics will cause alot of excess wear that may not show up now but later on it will..The machine is tight now and you want it to be broke in to last as it will. Looks Good!

"youhavenofish cuz youhavenowater" :) If you slow your spindle to about 750 and use a coolmist you will do better..the minute the cutter hits the steel, it looses its cutting edges and starts breaking down;cuts but cuts less effective..your program looks very good. On the hole plunges maybe U could edit it to plunge much slower the harmonics will cause alot of excess wear that may not show up now but later on it will..The machine is tight now and you want it to be broke in to last as it will. Looks Good!

i has water.. you can see a single squirt near the end!
:P

the chatter on the climb passes as it turns out was vibration in the workpiece. a few further cuts showed this well. the tool WAS slightly damaged though by this point, so that likely didnt help, but the work piece extending out of the vise was vibrating like a tunig fork! better clamping would have helped greatly, or more tool engagement which would have directed the cutting forces more into the vise.

according to the carbide cutter maker's data, i was good for the side cuts... too slow a feed even. 15ipm would be ideal, i was doing 10. later test cuts showed this to be quite fine with the right widths and depths.

the slot should have been about 1/3 the rpm (1650) i was doing, and fed at 2.5ipm instead of 5. BUT, instead of 1mm steps i could have done 1/8" deep or even deeper in one shot. so, as is often the case, slower actually yields faster metal removal and longer tool life. ive removed the slotting from the program now so its no matter on this part. i replaced it with a trocoidal pattern. we'll see how that works out.

for plunging, the reason it was bad was the tips had already been chipped at this point from the slotting, making it fairly innefective. ive since changed the program, the hole is done now in a second setup from the "bottom" with a drill clean through. no point hurting the poor tool bits for that. havent worked out the feed for that one yet, probably 2-3ipm.

as for coolant... it seems - at least at these lowish speeds and feeds - carbide works smoother in steel with no coolant. thats from my experiments anyway. 304 stainless and aluminum have worked much better with coolant. granted, ive not been using proper industrial coolant yet - havent gotton any. its just been a shot of wd40 here and there. ill be getting a mister and coolant soon.

anyhow, thanks for the suggestions. im slowly figuring out what works best on this machine with each material.