Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Thumb Calibration

I am no machinist, but sort of like when I was a kid and wanted to be a
rock star, I pretend I'm one on the weekends.

I use ME Consultant 2.0 to calculate my speeds and feeds. While "Hot
rolled mild steel" was not listed as an option, when I chose "Steel - Low
carbon (1020)" and plugged in the .5" 4 flute hss end mill, 0.1" deep, 0.5"
width of cut, it returned 821 RPM, 7.6 ipm, 0.474 HP. For this material,
it uses 107.5 sfpm. The program does a lot more, but I mainly use it for
speeds and feeds. I also bought kwiktrig, but when I just tried to run it,
the executable seemed to have disappeared, and when I re-installed it, it
told me the eval time limit has expired :-(

A google search should turn up places to download these programs.

Good luck,

- Steven Ciciora

At 05:32 PM 7/12/2004 +0000, you wrote:

>I am trying to get an idea of rules of thumb for speed and feeds
>that work.
>
>This weekend I was milling my first few parts with EMC and I noticed
>that the cutters dont fare quite as well as they did when I was
>doing it by hand.
>
>I made a .1" deep cut in hot rolled mild steel at .9 ipm for about
>30 inches. The HSS tool died quite suddenly from overheating, with
>no gradual degradation. It was working fine with little smoke from
>the cutting oil then- poof, blue chips burned cutter... The machine
>has a 2 HP motor and was running about 400 rpm.
>
>Should I switch to carbide ? I never liked them because I chip them
>easily, but the EMC is much more patient than me so maybe this wont
>be a problem. How much improvement will I get from carbide ? Will
>the flood coolant system make a big difference ?
>
>What are other users experiences with speed/feeds in various
>materials ?