bryan_machine
Diamond
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2006
- Location
- Near Seattle
Working on an aluminum heating block for pcr-tubes (think genetic sampling machine) It's a rush project.
I made first few using an endmill tilted over while spinning on the rotary of my 5-axis machine.
That works of course, but if this succeeds they'll want first a lot of them and then a WHOLE lot of them, and so doing them one piece at a time on a 5-axis machine isn't ideal.
The key shape is attached - a small tapered bore with a hemispherical end. (There's also a cross hole not shown here, other irrelvent features.)
Hopefully that drawing gets big for you all when you click on it.
Key numbers - only 0.271" wide at the top, 0.519" deep for cone section, and an included angle of 17.3°. (No standard taper mill I've found.)
The material is 6061-T6 aluminum.
Is this a job for a form tool of some kind? Would a pre-drill be required? How to get the form tool to not chatter? (My only attempt to use one years ago did not end well - but I'm older and less stupid now...) Could such a form tool make the hemispherical bottom in the same op? Without choking?
Or is it better to have a custom angle taper-mill made, and circular interpolate to get the side angles?
Other milling process suggestions?
I made first few using an endmill tilted over while spinning on the rotary of my 5-axis machine.
That works of course, but if this succeeds they'll want first a lot of them and then a WHOLE lot of them, and so doing them one piece at a time on a 5-axis machine isn't ideal.
The key shape is attached - a small tapered bore with a hemispherical end. (There's also a cross hole not shown here, other irrelvent features.)
Hopefully that drawing gets big for you all when you click on it.
Key numbers - only 0.271" wide at the top, 0.519" deep for cone section, and an included angle of 17.3°. (No standard taper mill I've found.)
The material is 6061-T6 aluminum.
Is this a job for a form tool of some kind? Would a pre-drill be required? How to get the form tool to not chatter? (My only attempt to use one years ago did not end well - but I'm older and less stupid now...) Could such a form tool make the hemispherical bottom in the same op? Without choking?
Or is it better to have a custom angle taper-mill made, and circular interpolate to get the side angles?
Other milling process suggestions?