Arrhhhhghgh!!!!! I am at the end of my rope!

[MASTERCAMMASTER]

Sorry I have machines (Haas, Mori, ect...)that probably have more coolant pressure than a moog, whats a moog?

[crazythunder]

Cool Hand you are funny

[CoolHand]

Originally Posted by MASTERCAMMASTER Sorry I have machines (Haas, Mori, ect...)that probably have more coolant pressure than a moog, whats a moog?

I can just about guarantee that they do. The best my old girl can muster is about 2 psi, on a good day. Maybe more with a tail wind. And that's not thru spindle, that's a weak little nozzle off to one side. That's as good as it got, until I "upgraded" the system myself. Now it'll blow the door open on the enclosure, and empty the basin in about two mins. lol Funny what a lawn sprinkler booster pump will do for your line pressure.

There is no reason for you to have ever heard of Moog, they've been out of business for a long time now.

Moog was a US distributor for MHP Machine Tools, and sold these (and several other) CNC's in the late 80's and early 90's. The base castings were manufactured in Spain, and the controls were assembled and attached in England before being imported into the US. For their time, they were pretty advanced, but by today's standards, they're a little "rustic".

My machine is a 1992 vintage, which was the last year they built VMC's. The company promptly went out of business and the rest is history. Happily, you can still find parts for them, as everything (or nearly so) is an off the shelf affair.

When you can't borrow $60k to start your business, those 15 yr old VMC's start to look pretty cherry, trust me. I've got in this machine less than a quarter of what a bargain basement HAAS costs, and that's with all the tooling, AND after a control retrofit, a head rebuild, and a spindle rebuild. It's paid for itself at least two or three times over by now. So, it's paid off, AND it's still in excellent shape (as opposed to wearing the machine out to make it's payments, resulting in it having to be replaced the instant it's paid off).

I dunno, at the time I had no other choice, but looking back, I'm pretty sure I'd do the same thing even if I'd have had the cash.

[andyhodgkinson]

Ryan, I cut 6061 on my Mini Mill on a daily basis with .250 endmills. I'd not waste the money on the carbide, use a coated HSS, they're tougher and less prone to breaking in the manner you're describing. I'd go 5K speed, 2 X .150 roughing passes and about 20 ipm. If it's not howling pretty good, speed it up.

[CoolHand]

Originally Posted by andyhodgkinson Ryan, I cut 6061 on my Mini Mill on a daily basis with .250 endmills. I'd not waste the money on the carbide, use a coated HSS, they're tougher and less prone to breaking in the manner you're describing. I'd go 5K speed, 2 X .150 roughing passes and about 20 ipm. If it's not howling pretty good, speed it up.

I guess I should quit bumping this thread.

The original post is over four years old. I've long ago figured this out (with the help of Niagara's website and the fine folks here, of course).

Currently I'm running these little ZrN coated HP 3 flt mills made by Accupro. They're holding up amazingly well, and they're taking a real beating while they're doing it. 5k RPM, 0.125" DOC, 0.1875" WOC, 30 IPM feed (that's 0.002 IPT), and they like it just fine. That's just about what I ended up at with the 2 flt Niagaras, but the DOC I settled at was less because my final depth was shallower (so I took two even cuts instead of one huge one and one tiny one) and the WOC was wider (100% in that case).

Perhaps Rekd ought to lock this one so folks don't keep wasting their time on it. No sense in re-solving a problem that's been out the door for four years.

Thanks for the assist though.