Hello,
I am the head coach for a high school robotics team. We have been using a CNC router for several years with varying levels of success. Last night we were cutting 0.190" 6061 aluminum plate without any problems. We are using a 4mm, single flute, carbide bit, V carve, and Mach 3 software. The router is running at 21,000 rpm, in a single pass, at roughly 50 ipm, and we were flooding it with coolant.... no problem. We then switched to .25" 6061 aluminum plate started having chip weld/pile up. This isn't the first time we cut .25" aluminum 6061 plate. Just the first time we have ended up with this problem We tried varying feed rate (all the way up to 80 ipm) and the number of passes (1 pass to 4 passes). With the attempt at 4 passes, it was on the 3rd pass when we went back to having problems. We decided that it might be the plate, so we switched to another .25" 6061 plate and are having the same problem with it. So we switched back to the .190" plate we were cutting and are now having the same problem with it. We have gone to Vcarve and regenerated the g-code. Same problem. As of right now we are 10 bits into this issue.
With our competition quickly approaching, I am needing help figuring this out so we can keep focused on our deadlines and our goals.
Any thoughts are appreciated.