Topic: MeTaLWerkinG Thread

[MidTNJasonF]

One of the most fun jobs we do involves running a 3 inch face mill (8 carbide inserts) at only .030 depth of cut but feeding about 280 to 320 inches per minute through heat treated 300 series stainless steel plate. Oh and we run it dry, no coolant. Creates a beautiful shower of straw colored 6's and 9's.

We also plunge a a 1 3/4" carbide insert drill 3" deep in 6061 T6 AL. Takes about 6 or 7 seconds to get to depth. About 18 seconds total cycle time for two holes and the rapid travel between them. The finishing of the holes is nice as well. We run a 1" two flute carbide end mill to interpolate the hole out to 1.923".

[scottly]

Anybody have any experience with PC based CNC controls? I have a Series I CNC Bridgeport, with a Boss 5 control, that I'm thinking about upgrading. I have an AH-HA control, with 2 micro-stepping drivers, that came from a plasma cutter my friend and I built: he built the machine itself, I set up the control, and another guy did the programing. He used it for 8 years, then bought a plas-cam system, that he learned to program himself.
 I need another stepper driver, plus any help with free, or at least cheap CAD/CAM software. Writing G-code manually sucks!!! I used to have auto-cad, so I could do the design work myself, but I had to have someone else convert my drawings into a tool-path.