Carbon fiber

[TERRYH]

I am starting a small business at home with a CNC router, I am cutting carbon fiber and G10 sheets the carbon fiber will most of the time be 3mm thick, what would e a good speed and feed for this to help my tooling last longer. I'll most likely be using a 1/8" endmill the most.

[Aaron Eberhard]

No idea on feeds/speeds/tools since I've never cut it myself, but good luck!

[Guest]

I would use a carbide diamond cut endmill, maybe 10000 and 50 IPM or 20000 and 100 IPM.

I wouldn't really expect tool life to be a big problem for you if you get the right tooling, since you are cutting thin sheets, the shortest tool passible would be good, too avoid snapping as the tool start to wear, maybe .250" of flute.

Carbon Fiber is fairly easy to cut.

[Guest]

https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/55409346

Something like this ^

The mfg speeds and feeds should be okay

[So not a Guru]

I've never cut it myself, but a late friend of mine did a lot of it and he said he used the oscillate option whenever possible to increase tool life.

[Colin Gilchrist]

https://www.hufschmied-tools.com/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2018/12/HUF-Neuheiten-17-HexaCut-low.pdf

https://www.hufschmied-tools.com/en/hufschmied-products/composites/

https://www.onsrud.com/Series/PolycrystallineDiamondTools.asp

https://www.onsrud.com/Series/Composites.asp

[Leon82]

We used the Harvey diamond coated with the double helix.

 

It pulls up on bottom and pushes down on top. We cut a bunch of windows with it. It tends to splinter if not supported so make a nice cap to hold it down

[RaiderX]

i am having descent luck with onsrud straight flute 2 flute carbide cutters. s18000 f50. ipm

6-8 parts life cutting aprox. 6 inches total travel each part.

this may not be considered great life but the cutters are cheap, cant get the company to spring for coated.

dont breath the dust.

[Guest]

30 minutes ago, RaiderX said:

i am having descent luck with onsrud straight flute 2 flute carbide cutters. s18000 f50. ipm

6-8 parts life cutting aprox. 6 inches total travel each part.

this may not be considered great life but the cutters are cheap, cant get the company to spring for coated.

dont breath the dust.

You might get better value using a specialized tool, they aren't expensive per part you can cut a lot with one tool.

[RaiderX]

1 hour ago, Thee Kid™ said:

You might get better value using a specialized tool, they aren't expensive per part you can cut a lot with one tool.

yep typical company tripping over $20 to save $1

forgot to mention. am using Robbjack .0625 carbide slitting saw on these for most of the profile. 24" profile distance each part. cutter has run several hundred parts and still running. cuts nice and very little burr.  1" dia s12000 f50. ipm

5 axis helps this approach so did not mention for a home router. my bad assumption?

[Colin Gilchrist]

Just now, RaiderX said:

yep typical company tripping over $20 to save $1

forgot to mention. am using Robbjack .0625 carbide slitting saw on these for most of the profile. 24" profile distance each part. cutter has run several hundred parts and still running. cuts nice and very little burr.  1" dia s12000 f50. ipm

5 axis helps this approach so did not mention for a home router. my bad assumption?

I call it "dollar wise", and "10-thousand dollar dumb".

[Leon82]

3 hours ago, RaiderX said:

yep typical company tripping over $20 to save $1

forgot to mention. am using Robbjack .0625 carbide slitting saw on these for most of the profile. 24" profile distance each part. cutter has run several hundred parts and still running. cuts nice and very little burr.  1" dia s12000 f50. ipm

5 axis helps this approach so did not mention for a home router. my bad assumption?

I used a saw like that to trim the boxes down. Worked good for taking the extra 1/8inch off