TwoWheeler
Aluminum
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2021
For an upcoming project, I need to make 200,000 2.5mm thru holes in an approximately 5' square piece of G10, .2in thick. (That's POINT 2 thick - ninja edit)
The weapon of choice is a Thermwood router and the software would be FeatureCAM.
Not being all that familiar with the material, and for the sake of starting somewhere, I told FeatureCAM the material was "plastic" and that I wanted 3000 RPM and it gave me 4.22IPM as a feed. I called a 3/32 drill bit and the software said .0938 peck in a chip break cycle.
Should I peck more? Less? Do those speeds/feeds sound like a reasonable starting point? (I will be given some material to experiment on).
Also, I'm thinking with that many holes, drill wear/breakage will be a factor. My first thought was to program the holes in sections/quadrants (and since the entire piece of material will be Swiss cheese-ed, it looks like it's going to involve moving whatever clamping contraption I can concoct). That would allow me to restart a section, rather than start from Hole one, all over again....especially when the drill breaks on hole number 199,999!
Given that I'm going to need to move clamps around, I'm pretty sold on the quadrant idea, but can I refine it further? I'm not sure if the Thermwood will allow you to search/start from a line number - if it does, could maybe I coordinate line numbers with holes, so that I can start somewhere in the vicinity of where the drill went south....or the power went out....or whatever.
Thoughts?
The weapon of choice is a Thermwood router and the software would be FeatureCAM.
Not being all that familiar with the material, and for the sake of starting somewhere, I told FeatureCAM the material was "plastic" and that I wanted 3000 RPM and it gave me 4.22IPM as a feed. I called a 3/32 drill bit and the software said .0938 peck in a chip break cycle.
Should I peck more? Less? Do those speeds/feeds sound like a reasonable starting point? (I will be given some material to experiment on).
Also, I'm thinking with that many holes, drill wear/breakage will be a factor. My first thought was to program the holes in sections/quadrants (and since the entire piece of material will be Swiss cheese-ed, it looks like it's going to involve moving whatever clamping contraption I can concoct). That would allow me to restart a section, rather than start from Hole one, all over again....especially when the drill breaks on hole number 199,999!
Given that I'm going to need to move clamps around, I'm pretty sold on the quadrant idea, but can I refine it further? I'm not sure if the Thermwood will allow you to search/start from a line number - if it does, could maybe I coordinate line numbers with holes, so that I can start somewhere in the vicinity of where the drill went south....or the power went out....or whatever.
Thoughts?