Drilling Aluminum - Ø2 mm

Tonytn36 · Feb 26, 2015

So I'm drilling a bunch of radial holes in some round Aluminum parts. These holes are Ø2 mm x 10 mm deep through holes. I'm using a Walter/Titex through coolant drill and I have 420 PSI of CTS available. I'm running 10k RPM (Max). What feeds would you guys recommend for this? Need to do a few thousand of them.

Mtndew · Feb 26, 2015

Tonytn36 said:
So I'm drilling a bunch of radial holes in some round Aluminum parts. These holes are Ø2 mm x 10 mm deep through holes. I'm using a Walter/Titex through coolant drill and I have 420 PSI of CTS available. I'm running 10k RPM (Max). What feeds would you guys recommend for this? Need to do a few thousand of them.

Do they have a recommended speeds and feeds chart on their website?
Is that drill made for aluminum? What coating? Polished flutes? I would say AT LEAST .0065IPR

Metalcutter · Feb 26, 2015

Hi Tony..

I use 3% of the drill diameter for the total chip load per revolution. I took your question to mean 2mm ~ .080".

If I've read you correctly then the total chip load per revolution should figure out, at .0024". @10000rpm, feed rate, 24 IPM. I did it in inches because I'm better at it.

You can back away from it about 20% chip load,for test purposes, and then sneek into the 24IPM.

Regards,
Nice to be able to help you. I still remember us at IMTS a while back.
Stanley Dornfeld.

Philabuster · Feb 26, 2015

Metalcutter said:
I took your question to mean 2mm ~ .040".

Last I checked 2mm was closer to .079". Just sayin.

Metalcutter · Feb 26, 2015

Philabuster said:
Last I checked 2mm was closer to .079". Just sayin.

Thanks, I got it.. I'm just OLD!
Stan_

charlie gary · Feb 26, 2015

Mtndew said:
Do they have a recommended speeds and feeds chart on their website?
Is that drill made for aluminum? What coating? Polished flutes? I would say AT LEAST .0065IPR

Walter has just about the worst web site I've ever tried to get info like that from. I get results quicker be e-mailing a Walter rep and asking him.

Paul806 · Feb 26, 2015

.0035"-.0043"IPR should do the trick.

PixMan · Feb 26, 2015

Tony,

This is easy, All you do is go to the Walter Tools website, click on the "Search and Recommend" thing and then click on the "GPS" thing. Select "application related search", enter in your material in the search function, click "Next", enter hole diameter, depth and (important) a tolerance (bigger the better), when the "Next" button turns green again, your drill will come up. The different tabs below will show everything from speed and feed to expected number of holes (usually way too conservative) and you can even click for it to generate a detailed PDF report.

Walter USA

I find there is a bug in selecting aluminum though. Their only 6061 is a Rolls Royce standard and it's way harder than any 6061 has a right to be. I enter 6063 and bump the hardness up to 71Hb.

So I tried your application myself and it gave me an A3389AML-2 drill, running at 28,600 rpm, 0.184mm per rev (5260mm/min), 0.14 seconds per hole, 50,000 holes.

I guess that translates to .0074" per rev, closer to what Mtndew said. It's solid carbide and coolant fed. Feed that bitch.

OK, so you only got 10,000 rpm so you do have to back off or it'll clog up.

Tonytn36 · Feb 27, 2015

The material is about 115 Hb. A3389AML-2 is the drill I'm using. Right now I'm feeding 3400 mm/min @ 10k (looks great) and wondered if I could push it a bit more. Alas, it looks like I am a "bit" over the top at 0.34 mm/rev. It is running great right now at that feed so think I will leave it alone and see how many holes I get. I'm running it in a Brother M140X1 and using an Albrect Uber chuck. Total projection is 120 mm.

PixMan · Feb 27, 2015

That's movin'. I'd love to see a video of that tiny drill punching holes at that rate!

How's the size and finish of the holes look?

zoeper · Feb 27, 2015

WOW! I did not even know these things existed. Awesome to know you could get a 2mm through tool coolant drill. $96 for a 2mm drill.... there's another eye opener for me. :willy_nilly:

0.184mm per rev (5260mm/min), 0.14 seconds per hole, 50,000 holes.

Rapids on my mill is 7000mm/ min and max feed rate is 1050mm/ min. Maybe I should stick to HSS for now.

PixMan · Feb 27, 2015

LOL...coolant thru drills are available at least down to 0,5mm diameter. Yes, they are expensive but time is even more money than tools.

My home shop 2-axis "cnc" Prototrak has rapid moves and feed motion that max out at the same 99 inches per minute, though I doubt it could actually contour at much above 30 inches a minute. I employ carbide tooling there, but know I'm not truly using it. It's not the same at work though. I'd be on the outside looking in if I didn't use what the machines could do.

Tonytn36 · Feb 27, 2015

PixMan said:
That's movin'. I'd love to see a video of that tiny drill punching holes at that rate!

How's the size and finish of the holes look?

I've got +/- 0.2 mm on Ø for a tolerance. Holes are straight and clean looking. Go slides right in, no go doesn't even start. I've only got 400 PSI on the CTS but it makes a huge difference. The R2B without CTS drilling the same hole with a non-through coated drill can only get 1900 mm/min reliably. Push it any harder and they start snapping off.

Tonytn36 · Feb 27, 2015

PixMan said:
LOL...coolant thru drills are available at least down to 0,5mm diameter. Yes, they are expensive but time is even more money than tools.

Yea, it doesn't take long to pay for a drill that cuts out time.
At the recommended 0.17mm/rev and 10k rpm and allowing 1 mm R plane and depth + 1 mm for exit, it takes 70.58 revs to drill the hole which takes about 0.42 seconds/hole.
At my current 0.34mm/rev and all else being the same, it takes 35.29 revs and 0.21 sec/hole. Granted, not a big deal if you have one or two holes but when you need to drill a million holes.........that is a considerable amount of $$ (you could buy a nice car with the savings in this case).

Jashley73 · Feb 27, 2015

Tony, are you entering the round/O.D. surface at 50% feed, and them punching it when the drill starts cutting full diameter? Just curious, as that's usually what's recommended for entering irregular surfaces...

Tonytn36 · Feb 28, 2015

Jashley73 said:
Tony, are you entering the round/O.D. surface at 50% feed, and them punching it when the drill starts cutting full diameter? Just curious, as that's usually what's recommended for entering irregular surfaces...

I'm infeeding 0.5 mm @ -600 mm/min (2800 mm/min) - just enough to get a good start.

steve_p · Feb 28, 2015

Are you getting enough flow at 420 psi thru that tiny drill to clear chips?

PixMan · Feb 28, 2015

steve_p said:
Are you getting enough flow at 420 psi thru that tiny drill to clear chips?

420 psi is plenty. The Titex drills state 150 to 450 psi right in the catalog. Some drills work better at the lower pressures because they don't try to force all the chips out of the flutes all at once. You just need enough to keep the drill, work and chips cool and get the flow of both chips and coolant going well. Running those 1000+ psi pressures heats up your coolant, degrades pump life and doesn't help productivity one bit.

I think there's always a balance of coolant holes in the drill being big enough to get a reasonable flow rate (volume per time) while maintaining enough core thickness to the carbide so it has the strength to push it. It's always compromising one thing in favor of another, so you find something that works andstick with it.

WILLEO6709 · Feb 28, 2015

Tonytn36 said:
I've only got 400 PSI on the CTS but it makes a huge difference.

if you were going deeper you would probably need to up the coolant pressure,,, even 2000 psi would not be over the top if the holes were 20:1

PixMan · Feb 28, 2015

WILLEO6709 said:
if you were going deeper you would probably need to up the coolant pressure,,, even 2000 psi would not be over the top if the holes were 20:1

Not always. I've drilled 38xD with a 1/4" Titex A7495TFP-1/4IN drill in 6061 aluminum and it worked fine at 450psi. That was midpoint of the 300 to 600 PSI that Titex recommended for the job.

Think of it as akin to screaming "Fire!" in a movie theater. Everyone (or in this case, every chip) will be rushing for the door and they get packed up at the door. In the case of drills, it can pack the flutes pretty good and cause breakage, though not at the tip so you got a chance of getting the carnage out of the hole.

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