At this one shop its so bad that there are 5 machines, 3 machinists and occasionally the boss or engineer can run a larger job. The machinists are all lookin to leave and if that happens it would sink that ship, guess that the man is blessed with understanding people.

I think that in adobe illistrator that you can save a file or export a file as a .dxf, or .dwg then your life would be easy and you could convert it in to an MC file in mastercam. Just a thought?

Thank you everyone, my problems are the board is laminated and sandwiched with copper foil throught and double sided also. Typically there is a .06 core built up both sides with alternating copper and laminate that is about .01 to .015 thick. We are just machining these for a manufacturer. The fixture base is alum. with a delrin pad and a clamp that is alum. with delrin pad. The clamp pad covers as much surface as possable there is only about .03 per side uncovered. The heli. flutes will delam if I get too close (about .125 is as close as I can get. So I sent in a 3/32 heli flute about .01 off the profile, the rough with a 1/4 heli flute, then finish the profile with a 3/16 straight flute. On the harder boards I only get through about 20 or so before cutters start failing, some of the endmills only have lasted through 8 boards. There is a lot of surface to rough with the 1/4 and it is cutting through the two materials so it will go first. I am just trying to save the boss some money by finding better tools. The diamond tools, will they cut the copper? I only have 7500 rpm. spindle also, will that be a problem. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated and sorry about the long post. Thanks,

Does anyone know of any good tools that will deal with cutting copper and the fiberglass in printed circuit boards? We rough with helical tools leaving .01 for finish, and then finish the fibreglass with straight flute router style endmills to prevent delamination? The bad part is I blow through so much tooling doing this, the boss thinks its the nature of the two materials against us? Typ. speeds and feeds for the 1/4 4fl. endmill is 7500 rpm and 20 ipm. This is about mid range, the book says 200-900 sfm. and feed of .0005-.0015 ipm. for this tool yet it only lasts through about 8 to 15 boards on average. Thanks,

Data Flute SS series ball endmills C11 coating all day long, and the next day too. Never had a problem with the 17-4 or 18-8.

I was trying to see if there is a c hook or a formula to make a scroll spiral like they use in a scroll fan housing or blower housing?? I have a formula, but it uses multiple arc centers and I just wanted a single arc center to make everything all that much easier. Thank you.

Hey anyone, I was wondering how you can take a bmp or jpg or some other grapics file and make it an mc screen background? I would like to do a project for school and we dont have the converts at school. Any info. is appreciated, thank you AJ

Hello, I need a little help to find speeds and feeds for slotting with a saw in 1010 hrs. The blade is 1/32 thick and 3" dia. 32 teeth, staggered side cutting, .200 depth for one operation and .380 for another. I was going to subroutine so that I was only taking about .05 to .1 per pass. Any suggestions from the great wisdom that is shared on this forum would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, AJ

I was wondering if a guru could help me mod. a post for my dynapath40 controller. I am using the MPDYPTH as my base and would like it to start the program with a tool change. I would also like it to stop putting in extra M3 lines. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks, AJ

Thanks for all of your suggestions. I think we will try the emuge taps next time. The tap was an M10 X 1.5, and the new brubaker tap just chipped after tapping the first hole. I didnt get the information on speeds and feeds or if it was a thru or blind hole. regards, AJ

Hello all, Does anyone have any experience tapping in 17-4 ss, it machines like butter but is very tough on taps, even the OSG series for this ss. Any speeds and feeds would be helpful, and also possable coolants or lubes. I think that the tap was an M6 or M8. Thenk you, AJ

live in sunny southern ca and work for a manufacturing, job shop. took a mastercam class at the local college and am trying to talk the boss into buying a seat.