Rigid tapping on Haas Mini Mill

[rrossey]

I am doing rigid tapping for the first time on Haas Mini Mill
Material: Aluminum 6061-T6
Tap size: #10-32
Tap: HSS Spiral Flute Tap (Greenfield)
Full thread depth required: 0.5”
It is a blind hole drilled to 1.2” depth

I tried with 500 rpm (Too low I presume). The chips get entangled in the tap and are not thrown away by the coolant. I tried going 0.25” full thread depth only.

What is the recommended rpm for this tap size?
By using higher rpm and increasing the R plane value from .1 to .4 will help?
Can I go the depth of 0.75” in one shot? (this will give the full thread depth of 0.5”)
Thanks,
R. Rossey

[PBMW]

A couple of questions first.
Blind holes like a spirol flute tap becaue the chips come out the top. Thru holes like a spirol tip tap because it pushed the chip out the bottom
I like form taps because there are no chips and you can go faster. Of course the drill size is not the same...
That said, I tap at about 1500rpm on my mini. Everything from 000/120 to 3/8-16
I usually leave about .05 at the bottom of the hole on a form tap for clearance

[rrossey]

Thanks for the suggestion.
With a form tap, can I go the full depth in one shot?

[PBMW]

I do all the time.
I have a part that I do on my lathe that has a 5/16-18 thd. 1.25 deep. I form tap it at 2000 rpm. I do these on my SL10 Haas with no issues
Just be sure to look in the machinerys handbook for the correct tap drill. It is NOT the same as a regular cut tap. It is a significantly larger drill. Use th ewrong drill and you'll break taps

[fuzzyracing1967]

I have several parts that we tap 10-32 holes that deep and a little deeper.The one thing I would do is up the rpm to 1500.As for it being a blind hole you have plenty of extra depth,so no problem there,same goes for the spiral taps.Your r value dosn't efect anything as far as the tapping,that's just a start point. The one thing we do that may efect it, would be that we modified the flexable coolant line so that it sprays a very small tight steam of coolant staight into the hole as it's tapping,this may help with chips.
Hope this helps

[bishb25]

Form tapping works very well in aluminum. If the coolant proves inadequate we will turn off the coolant and brush some "PRO-TAP" on the tap. You can even put the PRO-TAP in a hand pump oil can and squirt it directly into the hole.
P.S. Remember you can only rigid tap up to 2000 rpm on most HAAS mills.
Also, check setting #130 "tap retract speed" I like to set this to "1" when tapping shallow holes at high RPM. Based on discussions I've had with HAAS techs I believe this reduces possible synchronization error (not 100% sure if that's true, but just a quark I have).

[PBMW]

I HATE that 2k rpm limit.....

[fuzzyracing1967]

(I HATE that 2k rpm limit.....)
I agree,it would be so much fun to tap at say 8000rpm's

[Geof]

Originally Posted by fuzzyracing1967 (I HATE that 2k rpm limit.....) I agree,it would be so much fun to tap at say 8000rpm's

Have you watched how fast the spindle gets to when tapping. I set the speed at 1000 rpm and rarely does it reach that before it stops and backs out. Setting a higher speed would be no faster.

[PBMW]

Yea, I know that too Geof. I was watchin a pallet changer Robodrill the other day in a friends shop. 24K spindle, Just BLAZING fast. Not that much more money....

[Geof]

I guess the Robodrill has a small spindle; less rotating mass so it can accelerate faster. There is quite a difference between tapping cycle times on our Super Minimills versus a VF2 with the same program.

[slatern44]

What's the max tapping RPM's on the VF-2?