Rigid Tapping

[Teps71]

Does anyone have experience rigid tapping with a Cent6 controller? My mill is supposed to have this option, and I would like to learn more about. Am I understanding correctly that you can chuck a tap up in there using say an ER-32 collet and program tapping? If so, what would be the better to use cut taps or form taps?

Thanks for any information.

[wcopley]

Yes you can put your tap in a collet. the type of tap depends on what you want to do. material blind hole thru.

[solgood]

if you have rigid tapping you will need to have tap collets, they will hold on to the square end of the tap.

form vs cut

6061AL form or cut
brass cut
copper form
anything cast cut
1018CR cut
most CR lead steels form or cut
tool steels cut or thread mill
SST cut or form

if you have to pound a blind hole into some material
that you can form tap its best to use one. If not you can use a spiral fluted cutting tap that will send the chips up the tap not down like other cutting taps.

hope that helps

feel free to ask more questions

[tsutt]

I tap with collets all the time, just got to make sure there tight. BTW, rigid tap on a cent 6 is a G88. Todd

[Teps71]

Thanks for the reply guys. I'll have a chance to play with with it tonight and see if my mill supports this feature. The original owner had a hodge-podge of add-ons and didn't go with the package upgrades. I'm hoping this is one of them.

[msomerville]

I haven't done any rigid tapping on my Cent.6. I have on my Cent.5. I don't know how familiar you are with the conversational side of the controller but they make it very easy to figure it out. Some guys don't care for the conversational programming, but I do a lot of prototype molds, and sometimes nothing can touch the speed in which I can create the program. I also use regular collets. I would have to say if you can use a form tap that is the way to go, especially in a blind hole. No chips

[Teps71]

I attempted to do some hard right tap cycles and no love. The table moves in X/Y but no movement in Z. After looking through the documentation that came with the mill, the previous owner had a sheet of G and M codes hand written and next to G88 there is "Hard Tap (Not Avail)"

So, it looks like I'm out of luck

Looks like this is a $1200 option currently. I don't know that I would do enough tapping to justify that much money. I could put that towards a dedicated tapping table.

Thanks for the help and quick replies.

James

[Bill Clark]

Rigid tapping works in a standard collet I have even used a drill chuck

[solgood]

I will agree with you guys, Rigid tapping will work with standard collets but be careful with your RPMs. I will some times rigid tap at 8000 to 10000 RPM and at those RPMs you need tap collets.

[tsutt]

8-10000 rpm? Whats the point of that? In what kind of mat'l?

[solgood]

some of our jobs are very high production 5000 to 10000 pcs. per order so if i can decrease run time at all its worth it. i have cut taped and form taped at 8-10000 rpm in AL, brass, and copper. keep in mind those were not very big taps (6-32 up to 5/16-18).

[Teps71]

Does anyone know exactly what one gets for $1200 with the rigid tapping feature from Milltronics? I mean is there some hardware they add or are they simply turning on an option in the setup?