[.xXACEXx.]

howdy..homebuilt router guys...

i was just wondering if any one has tried cutting steel with their home built cnc router (and yes i know a bunch of yall are now rolling your eyes ) i know its not the best machine for milling steel, i machine steel all day at work (well turn on a lathe any way) but i was wondering if any one has tried it on their light weight home built cnc router, a router is a pretty light weight machine,at least home built machines tend to be light weight,but there are some heavy wieght factory made machines cutting steel sheet material,so if you have ,and have made some pictures of the crash that resulted it would be pretty cool to see your sucess or failure,or post a video of the machine cutting,now having said that dont every one rush to their router with a cast iron engine block to try cutting it because i suspect if you are not very careful ,you could break your machine very fast...but any way... (im imagining a 200 pound engine block sitting on a 50 pound mdf router..ahhhh funny stuff...lol..im pretty easy to amuse...)

[tahustvedt]

Well, I don't know if this counts, but I accidentally ran the router bit through a steel screw at high RPM after I had lost steps once because I overloaded the router when I cut too deep/fast in MDF. The machine didn't flinch but the 6 mm carbide end mill was chipped slightly so I discarded it. One half of the screw head was gone.

[epineh]

Heh, I did the same as tahustvedt, though in my case the job was scaled wrong and was bigger than the ply sheet I had screwed down, kinda trimmed one of the screws flat, no damage, but I installed the E-stop soon after this event

Russell.

[.xXACEXx.]

what kinda rpm were yall running when ya had the goof ups??..and feed rate ?? my guess was 20-30 inches a min if cutting wood..did the machine lose any steps on the stepper motor?? im just curious...i see some guys cuttint aluminum with a router...was wondering about cutting steel and propper rpm and feed rate of course...

[svenakela]

Of course it depends on the build up, but here are people running steel. it's just a matter of rigidness.

[epineh]

I remember Andy (10Bulls) did a bit of steel cutting with his machine, post #116 if the link doesn't take you straight there...

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showth...hlight=10bulls

[.xXACEXx.]

thats a pretty good post to follow...lotsa things that were incountered and overcame milling steel with a router can be done i guess...just dont try it at 30,000 rpm and 100 inches a minute im gonna have to finish reading that post pretty good so far... another thing i didnt know existed ..cambam.. at firts glance it looks pretty cool too....a person could literaly spend weeks reading all these post before designing a cnc router(which by the way is exactly what ive been doing ,in my free time)....yup good stuff

[epineh]

Yup Andy certainly has an entertaining build log, and CAMBAM is definately worth a look, I have done some simple 2D profiles and it works a treat.

Russell.

[ger21]

a person could literaly spend weeks reading all these post before designing a cnc router(which by the way is exactly what ive been doing ,in my free time)....yup good stuff

If you don't spend a few months reading, you'll probably be missing some good info that you'd wish you'd found earlier.

[ger21]

This guy did some test cuts in steel, see post #47.

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showth...p?t=2249&pp=15

[10bulls]

Hi guys,

Here's the last bit of steel cutting I did in some 0.25" BMS. I did this one without coolant, using a couple of squeezes of cutting oil. The cutter was a pretty cheesy TiN coated HSS 3mm 4 flute end mill. I took it very slow; 50mm/min feed, 10mm/min plunge and 0.2mm per pass. If using coolant, I would have cranked it up a bit. I've since got some nice 3 flute solid carbide bits I think could cut faster too.

The zip file contains the CamBam file I used. The spiral mill/drilling operations work nice in steel. Spiral lead ins should appear in the next version which is really needed when working with steel.

I'm pretty confident you could do this on an MDF machine, especially a well put together one. Give it a go! What's the worst that can happen?

[.xXACEXx.]

there just aint enuf hours in the days i vote we make the days 36 hours long! but still get 8 hours sleep, and 10 hours to work the rest for fun stuff !!who's with me?? of course we'll need the BIG GUYS approval first... i have logged several days (24 hour days that is) reading...still no machine has appeared. .hmm strange huh? well i better crash,..and to think when i first saw a homebuilt cnc router on www.buildyouridea.com i thought he had to be the only one ever to try such a thing...now i think ...im the only one who's not got one...lol

[tahustvedt]

10bulls

You inspired me to try so I rummaged through the waste bin at work and found a little piece of steel (I've no idea what kind of steel). I used a 6 mm three flute carbide end mill and ran it at ~1100 rpm and used red spirit for cooling. It went well but my router doesn't compensate for the load like your Kress so I had to run slow. I made a 0.6 mm deep pocket in the material in two passes. Cool stuff! I will probably get a Kress 1050 router soon.

[10bulls]

You inspired me to try so I rummaged through the waste bin at work and found a little piece of steel (I've no idea what kind of steel). I used a 6 mm three flute carbide end mill and ran it at ~1100 rpm and used red spirit for cooling. It went well...

Phew! I read "You inspired me to try..." in my email notification and was half expecting to read "...and now I only have one eye!"

...but my router doesn't compensate for the load like your Kress so I had to run slow. I made a 0.6 mm deep pocket in the material in two passes. Cool stuff! I will probably get a Kress 1050 router soon.

Yes, I had that problem with my small die grinder, lowest speed tended to stall under load and higher rpms melted cutters. I do like my Kress.

[tahustvedt]

Hehe. I use goggles.

When milling steel I encounter a limitation of my machine and that's why I was milling this plate. The plate which the spindle is mounted to flexes in the X-direction so I'm making a new one from 7075 aluminium and steel.