I'm getting very frustrated about the inability for these engineer clowns to give me a reason why they are using one metal vs another. We are using crazy hard materials for things that seem like crs should be fine. I looked back at some of the old blueprints and we are about to make something out of d2 that was previously o1? We are also using a tone of 4140 pre heat treated for die blocks. I have been doing a ton of reading on tool steels and for a punch that is piercing holes in .125 aluminum, D2 to a 60-62 Rc hardnes is to brittle. Also we are making these plates out of a2 that was previously .156 x 2.625 M2!!!!. There is a particular block we have made over 10 times in the last 6 months. It is the bottom form steel in a die that forms a channel along a length of .0325 brass. the channel is .09 wide and 3.5 inches long and draws around a .625 radius to for a U shaped channel .375 deep. We make this out of 4140 and harden it to 60 RC. And it shatters when they drop it like its made of glass. I keep asking them WTF made you decide to use that metal and they keep looking at me like who are you other than the programmer guy who talks to us like we are retarded. I would hope out there somewhere engineers choose their metal based on its properies and not just because it sounds good.

We spend a huge amount of time on grinding parts here. The manual machin guys bring the parts close to tolerance, send it out to heat treat and then grind it all over again. We are planning to move a lot of these jobs into the cnc room but my experience is mainly with 6061-t6 aluminum. I'm told that A2 as well as D2 hold their tolerance very well. My question is on a flat plat .156 thick 2.25 inches dia. How much do you think it will move taking it to 50-54 RC in hardness. Is there a reason why we cant just finish it before heat treat if the tolerance in + or - .001? On a side note. In my research I discovered that D2 is not the toughest metal. We are getting a lot of breakage on some of the punches we make for our stamping presses. Do you think d2 is too brittle when hardened to 60-62 RC for punching .125 aluminum sheet? maybe a2 is better? thanks

Hello, Try making sure that the port setting on Com1 match the settings you have input into cimco. You can do this in control panel/system/hardware/device manager/ports/properties. These setting should match cimco and your controller. Also make sure your controller and software have same flow control settings. Good luck

Apparently in mastercam if you change spindle speed and dont click out of that box instead click back to tapping tab mastercam will not change feedrate. I'm working with aluminum so my spindle was cranked up sense i typed 300 in the spindle speed box and then just clicked straight back to tapping tab it left the feed rate uncalculated for the change. This must be a bug.

I just noticed on my tool tab in my tap cycle that my tool plunge rate and retract is 141. and its not editable. I restarted mastercam and can see the feedrate changing when i change speed on spindle but plunge rate remains 141.00.

I'm using a 1/2-13 tap rh and manually put in 300rpm and thats the feed mastercam keeps posting. what am I doing wrong here?

N346T4M6 N348G0G90G54X10.Y0.S300M3 N350G43H4Z3.M8 N352G98G84Z-.5R.1F141. N354X2. N356X6. N358X8. N360X-2. N362X4. that look right to anyone?

Ok heres the problem. I have machined many die mold sets in the past. Scallop, project got all the paths undertood. But, I have only worked with 6061 t6 aluminum. Now I'm about to make my first set out of a36 cold rolled steel. I'm scared! Any advice about speeds and feeds? I have no machinist manual and I'm mastercam programmer and machine operator here. I know to SLOW DOWN. but anything else?

just wondering I have alot of surfaces on these molds.

Thanks guys perfect

and easy way for to locate the smallest radius in a die mold? any help would be great thanks