Aluminum 3d machineing

[RichardG]

I have recently been 3D machining a lot of 2"x2.5"x12" aluminum stock for some prototypes. The shop bot seems to handle this rather easily. The rough cut is about 6 hours. The outside will be finished with a 1/4" ball nose, and the piece will be flipped to machine the inside. I will post more pictures as we proceed.

[bleeth]

Very Impressive-Can't wait to see the finished part.

[khaos]

Great job. Looking forward to seeing the finished product.

As always we are interested in bits feeds and speeds. :)

[RichardG]

I am using a Onsrud 3/8" single flute solid carbide, at
10,000 rpm
14 feet/min
Depth .075"
step over .125

[Simops]

Nice effort.....your feed speed of 2.8"/sec seems fast for aluminium ......May I ask what grade of aluminium you are using? The grade that I can only get here is such that if I used 14'/min at a 0.075 pass depth would easily break a 1/4" carbide bit!!

Cheers

[Brady Watson]

Very nice. Thanks for posting pics. Yes, it is amazing what you can do with a ShopBot - even light milling. While it certainly is not the right tool for 3D production milling of AL, it can certainly handle prototypes if you have the time. The Desktop SB will machine AL even better than the gantry tools. It looks like your patience & careful toolpathing & machining is going to pay off. Bravo! :cool:

-B

[RichardG]

I am using a 3/8" bit for the rough cut, 1/4" ball nose for the finish cut with .015 " depth. Also I am using bobcam to compute tool paths and I think the speeds are off when output to the machine, because when I test cut in vcarve the speeds that work are slower. I just did a bunch of test with the bobcam feeds to get one that worked right. I would not use my feed speed as a reference.

[RichardG]

19046

19047

19048

updated progress

[bleeth]

Wow. Lookin good.