HSM Questions?

[nickelback]

1) How do you figure what feeds and speds to run cutters at? Does the same formula apply as regular milling from the Machinery's handbook?

 

2) What operations and parameters work the best from the Mastercam? We are using Mill Level 3. I was told one trick is to keep the cutter cutting. Keep it into the workpiece or it will dull faster.

 

3) We are machining graphite with the machine. It is a Haas VF-2 HSM. What types of cutters work the best for machining.

[drago]

1) All the general principals of machining apply to HSM. Only difference is you're cutting things at higher feeds and speeds. Look in the catalog you're getting you tooling from, it usually lists feeds and speeds, and those values are a good starting point.

 

2) I'm not familiar with that philosophy. As long as you're feeds and speeds are within norm, you should be fine as far as toollife goes.

 

3) Most of the tooling companies have cutters for graphite cutting, talk to one of your reps.

[HevyMetl]

The formula's are as simple or as complicated as you want depending on who is teaching. Makino has a great class on HSM called the Tech Transfer Class. Jabro tooling has a great catalogue with alot of charts and a spreadsheet to figure depth of cut, stepover, and rpm. OSG has a complete backsection of the catalogue with the same information.

 

I created my tools in MC with the paramaters I found from these sources. I just choose them from the library and then fill in the necessary information. I do many of the same opereations so I have most of the variables prediefied in the opereations library.

 

Diamond coated is the only way to go for graphite. There are some great suppliers out there. I currently use OSG and Jabro. Sp3 and Crystllum where great but they started to get a little pricy and the suppliers above came in lower. The tool life on the OSG is not quite as long but the cost was almost half for what I was using.

 

Contact me at my e-mail address and I can give you some of my contacts.