Hey guys, I have a lowrider v4 with a Makita 701 and a 1/8in single flute endmill. What estlcam settings would you recommend for milling a 6061 aluminum plate? Thanks in advance!
How thick, how big of a cut, etc.?
Thin aluminum (3mm or less) you could probably get away with non-trochoidal. I’ve cut 3/8" (9 mm) using trochoidal milling in a single pass, but it was pushing the limits (mostly due to poor chip evacuation). 1/4" (6mm) aluminum in a single pass worked very well with trochoidal milling.
You may want to consider an air/mist cooling system (using Isopropyl Alcohol aka IPA) to prevent chips welding to the router bit.
I used 1950 mm/min with 17500 rpm, or 2250 mm/min with 20000 rpm, both at full DOC using trochoidal and air mist cooling. Trochoidal settings were 8% trochoidal stopover, and 35% trochoidal width.
Others may have different recommended feeds and speeds, and YMMV, depending on your machine.
Its a 1.5mm thick sheet. Great idea to use coolant, would wd40 work?
1.5 mm should be relatively simple to cut, trochoidal probably not necessary. WD40 may gum things up, a spray bottle of 99% IPA (if you don’t want to go through the setup headaches of an air mist system) would probably be better. But at 1.5 mm, that may not be necessary either.
Thanks for the help! I will let you know how it goes.
Thanks for all the help, guys!