[chrisnis]

I have debating getting a couple high feed mills.If you dont know what they are check them out at places like lakeshorecarbide.com . Basically mills made for high feed low depth of cut.

Now heres the thing . I am running a small x2 hobby cnc mill and dont usually run high feedrates (usually top out at around 15ipm with the tools im using and being conservative) I do however use solidworks and HSMworks which is capable of making advanced HSM toolpaths.I also do a lot of pocketing around 1" deep in aluminum.

Do you think its worth it to go with feed mills and run higher feedrates. I know most people using these mills are running in the hundreds of IPM but would i still benefit from using these mills on my smaller machine?

[SCzEngrgGroup]

I can't imagine what you'd gain by that. Have you looked at the speed/feed recommendations for those things? You won't have the spindle RPM to run anywhere near the recommended SFPM, even in steel, and you won't have the rigidity to run high feedrate without over-shooting on every corner (which will probably break the inserts anyway). At the RPM and feeds you could realistically run, your MRR would probably be much less than what you'd get by properly using a far cheaper HSS endmill.

Regards,
Ray L.

[rlockwood]

I have debating getting a couple high feed mills.If you dont know what they are check them out at places like lakeshorecarbide.com . Basically mills made for high feed low depth of cut.

Now heres the thing . I am running a small x2 hobby cnc mill and dont usually run high feedrates (usually top out at around 15ipm with the tools im using and being conservative) I do however use solidworks and HSMworks which is capable of making advanced HSM toolpaths.I also do a lot of pocketing around 1" deep in aluminum.

Do you think its worth it to go with feed mills and run higher feedrates. I know most people using these mills are running in the hundreds of IPM but would i still benefit from using these mills on my smaller machine?

Feedmills dont require any fancy tool path anyhow, the idea behind them being that you run them at as near to full engagement as possible, as quickly as possible, with low axial engagement.

They're mostly used in Tool & Die work, where hard metals need 3d contours milled into large pieces of harder grades of steel.

Also, they're generally terrible in aluminum, as aluminum cant handle the heat generated in such a thin chip-- nearly instantaneous BUE.