- Joined
- Jan 11, 2020
- Messages
- 71
My home shop experience has more or less come to the same conclusion as yours. I went from using Bridgeports, Haas toolroom mills at uni to a Taig mini mill at home after I graduated. Quite the step down... but what a learning experience! These smaller mills are far less forgiving than something thats 1,000+ lbs with lots of HP's which really taught me a lot about feeds and speeds and best practices to get the most our of a machine. When I first got my Taig I didn't think it was capable of very much and after spending about 3-4 years with it I've learned that you can do a lot with with a 10k spindle and some reasonable feedrates.
When I cut aluminum on that machine I'm usually doing MRR's of around 0.5-0.8 cu in/min, which isn't a lot, but its good enough for a hobbyist with an 80lb machine. I'm usually using a 3/8 or 1/4 roughing end mill, around 5-9krpm, and feed rates of 20-30ipm. Yeah, it doesn't cut very quickly but it will hold <0.003in all day long and give a nice surface finish with a descent high flute end mill at 10krpm for a finishing pass.
I've even been able to cut 303 stainless which isn't quite as easy. That involves lower RPMs obviously and bumping up the chip load to prevent work hardening. That's when rigidity really starts to be a problem.
When I cut aluminum on that machine I'm usually doing MRR's of around 0.5-0.8 cu in/min, which isn't a lot, but its good enough for a hobbyist with an 80lb machine. I'm usually using a 3/8 or 1/4 roughing end mill, around 5-9krpm, and feed rates of 20-30ipm. Yeah, it doesn't cut very quickly but it will hold <0.003in all day long and give a nice surface finish with a descent high flute end mill at 10krpm for a finishing pass.
I've even been able to cut 303 stainless which isn't quite as easy. That involves lower RPMs obviously and bumping up the chip load to prevent work hardening. That's when rigidity really starts to be a problem.