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Coolant Through End Mills

typoknig

Aluminum
Joined
Dec 30, 2021
I'm getting TSC installed on my VF-2 this month and I started looking into coolant through tools today. I'm still recovering from the sticker shock. A 1/4" Absurd, excuse me, Onsurd, end mill (AMC715107) was quoted to me at $97, 1/2" (AMC715307) at $172, and 3/4" (AMC715511) at $309! These are my distributor prices, the list prices on the website are even more insane ($155, $258, and $494 respectively)! Are people actually paying these prices or is there a secret place where coolant through end mills can be obtained for reasonable prices?
 
Use a standard endmill in:
1. An ER collet holder with a standard collet, the coolant will blow through the collet.
2. A shrinkfit or sidelock holder with coolant holes or channels.
 
It’s a little wired to invest TSC without first understanding when it is worth it. For profile cuts it won’t make a huge difference.

If you need to drill deep, well the impossible becomes easy: MIKRON TOOL - CrazyDrill Cool XL - Deep hole drilling various materials - YouTube

Not investing. Haas owes me a pound of flesh, and TSC is how I'm getting "paid".

That is a pretty cool video, but I don't have to drill a hole that deep yet. Eventually I will need to mill out a relatively deep pocket with a small-ish end mill, so I think TSC will be of use there.
 
Use a standard endmill in:
1. An ER collet holder with a standard collet, the coolant will blow through the collet.
2. A shrinkfit or sidelock holder with coolant holes or channels.

Meh, I watched some videos of standard ER collets and even ER collets with jets and wasn't impressed. Specifically this video:

See the difference when using coolant collets - YouTube

The standard ER collet is an obvious fail, I mean, it blasts out coolant, but the centrifugal force puts the coolant everywhere except where it needs to go. The jet collet does better, but when he ramps it up to 6K RPM you can see it is also not getting to the tip of the tool. The guy says that is because it is a 6" long tool, but I don't think I agree with his assessment. And the situation would only get worse at higher RPMs, and since most of my milling is on small aluminum parts I'm running the spindle at 10K to 12K most of the time.
 
I've never had occasion to use TSC end mills unless they were inserted. Those bodies aren't exactly free but at least you get a lot of use out of them (absent doing something stupid).

Deep pockets and drilling are where I find benefit from TSC.
 
Are you at liberty to explain why Haas owes you? If so, I'm sure a number of folks here are curious.

Suffice to say, my machine had many problems on delivery and it took months to sort out. I don't want to go into it more than that.
 
Suffice to say, my machine had many problems on delivery and it took months to sort out. I don't want to go into it more than that.

Fair enough. It must have been pretty "good" to get Haas to do a field upgrade to TSC. My recollection is they claim that can't be done, it has to be an "as built" option. Never really believed that myself...
 
Fair enough. It must have been pretty "good" to get Haas to do a field upgrade to TSC. My recollection is they claim that can't be done, it has to be an "as built" option. Never really believed that myself...

Some older machines can be field upgraded regardless if they were "TSC Ready" or not. Newer machines have to be "TSC Ready" before they can be upgraded to TSC in the field. I ordered my machine "TSC Ready" so I would have the option to upgrade later. I think you are right though, they *could* upgrade any machine, but the cost would be considerably higher if the machine weren't "TSC Ready", so they just don't do it any more on machines that aren't "TSC Ready".
 
Are you wanting a hole thru the center of the end mill? Or are you just wanting coolant blasted down the shank?

You could try one of these for cheap to see if you like it. Tool Holders, Collets and Machine Accessories ER Coolant Jet Collets - MariTool

Or you could look at Pioneer, they have solid holders with Jet Blast that we have a few of.
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Or if you want a hole in the center of the end mill, I've used SwiftCarb end mills for a repeat job we have in aluminum.
I believe the 1/2" tsc end mill was $100 last we bought them.

Not many mfg's make tsc end mills that I'm aware of so they are rather hard to find.
I could have sworn that Kennametal make some though, but I could be wrong.
 
Are you wanting a hole thru the center of the end mill? Or are you just wanting coolant blasted down the shank?
.
Straight hole through the center of a endmill does not work very well.
You have killed the core and any strength. You need the twisty holes.
Now grinding it gets more complicated so that it all ends up right and helix and gullet shape is limited by the catalog standard blanks wind.
Normally these holes exit on the ass end in the hope of flushing chips on the next flute. Drills the same.
Sometimes this works like magic and worth the money, many other times not so much.
It all seems so logical but is sort of a bandaid for not so good of a tool geometry or process parameters to start with.
Forgive me but the same with high pressure coolant pissing stream on a insert holder.
Bob
 
In that video they must have really low TSC pressure and a large diameter collet; perfect recipe to make it sling. Smaller collet and higher pressure and it works fine. I was using 1000 PSI TSC on a VF-3SS effectively. ER-16 would be good to about 8k-10k, ER-11 to 15k. When the coolant hits the work at those speeds it bounces back, much of it toward the tool, and creates a bubble of high flow coolant over the cutter.
 
In that video they must have really low TSC pressure and a large diameter collet; perfect recipe to make it sling. Smaller collet and higher pressure and it works fine. I was using 1000 PSI TSC on a VF-3SS effectively. ER-16 would be good to about 8k-10k, ER-11 to 15k. When the coolant hits the work at those speeds it bounces back, much of it toward the tool, and creates a bubble of high flow coolant over the cutter.

The jet collets don't cost much, so I guess I'll give them a chance. Hopefully the 1K TSC option proves more impressive than the videos I've seen which use the jet collets.
 
I was impressed by the little thread things they use when moulding carbide tools, clever, spiral coolant ways.
It’s on the sandvick carbide video I think
Mark
 








 
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