Advice for milling wood with a vmc

[aaronmk]

Hey all. I've got a Light Machines vertical milling center (prolight 5000) which I use for aluminum parts and I wanted to use it to try my hand at carving some wood boxes, etc. I was worried about how saw dust would affect the machinery (ball screws, spindle motor, etc.). My instincts tell me that it will gum up the workings and make for a cleaning nightmare. I do have bellows on the z and y but not the x. Any advice on this? Thanks for the help!

[aaronmk]

A couple cell phone pics of my rig...

[diecutter]

Looks like a sweet setup. I ran a pair of Fadal vmcs cutting rigid plastic foam all day, every day, and there were never any problems . I had to religiously brush and shop vac out each machine at the end of the shift due to all the dust generated, but no other special steps were taken and the vcms seemed happy.

I would think that wood dust would be equal or less of a problem.

[woodchips]

If you wipe up any oil pools or residue on exposed way serfaces before hand and keep the thig dry you should be albe to cut wood all day long and any dust will just blow off. It will get gooey where your lube seeps out but that too will blow right off with compressed air or a shop vac. I would recomend not blowing dust around when there is no tool in the spindle as it gets harder to clean out. Wood is really quite easy just different.

Have fun making chips.

[aaronmk]

Thanks for the advice guys. That gives me the confidence I needed. I'm also thinking about putting bellows under the table on the x axis to minimize dust on the ballscrew grease. Maybe a vacuum port too if things get too dusty.