O/T Milling Ultem 2300

[Lars Christensen]

Hi guy's

Knowing that there are a coupel of you guy's who has experience milling this stuff, I am hoping that you would give me some advice. This stuff is to my knowledge 30% glass .

It is a block 18" X 8" X 2" that have some different holes and pockets, no shapes that I am particually nervers to program and mill except this is a unknown material to me. I am thinking that my cutter range will be from 1/2" to 1/32 in endmill size's, and I can not use any cutting fluids (demand from customer). I know that I will be putting a good portion of stress into this material, so I am wondering how Ultem 2300 are handling that.

 

Any advice in cutter selction, amount of flutes, coatings and feeds and speeds would be awesome. I was wondering if I should get a air chiller for this job?.

 

Thanks a lot guy's

 

Lars

[kyle forbes]

Lars,

I have machined small parts from ultem, I would recommend some sort of air blast, I found that the

material will build up on tools so you want to keep up on that to prevent breakage. Tialn coating

seemed to work good along with a open fluted cutter. The cutting edges hold up pretty good.

[crazy^millman]

Will be superised as the how much it does not move. Machine it with good sharp tools keeping a decent surface feed all will be good. Air would be just fine for it and just keep a constant surface speed on the cutters of 350 to 450 and all should be good. I would also keep my chip looad to .001 to .0025 per tooth. To little chip load and it like to load up.

 

hth

[Jedi Mastercam X]

SHARP tools are key my friend. i machined a lot of this stuff, including vespels, when i was in Austin doing semi-conductor work for Applied materials. always try to hold parts in a "free State" rather then bolting/clamping them down. Mi-TEE Bites work excellent under this scenario.

 

Jets of air are excellent as u need to keep the tool somewhat cool as u need to run a higher RPM then usual. back off the chip load (IPR) to keep the piece in tact.

 

again though, SHARP-NEW TOOLS, are without a doubt ur money maker for this work. Good luck!!!!!!

[dougm]

the greatest problem with 2300 is Stress

if the part has lots of material to be removed

keeping it flat may be a problem

remove equal material from each side when possible

also

unless the material has been planed

I would face off the outer "skin" from both

sides first

[Lars Christensen]

Thank you so much for your advice, I verly apreciate it, can not wait to get this one under my belt.

 

Lars

[heavychevy2155]

what would this material be used for.

[Lars Christensen]

This is for GM I believe, some kind of fuel cell.