Finally saw the difference after dialing in my feed rate on the Tormach over the past 3 months

I used to run at 40 IPM and get chatter marks on every aluminum part, but after stepping down to 28 IPM and slowing the spindle I'm getting mirror finishes now, has anyone else found a sweet spot that changed their whole setup?

3 comments

3 Comments

tessap979d ago

Have you tried playing with your stepover at all? I was stuck in a similar spot on my Haas mini mill and dropping from .050" to .035" stepover with a 1/2" end mill made a night and day difference on 6061. Also switching to a variable helix end mill helped a ton, cut my chatter issues by like 80%. The feed rate sweet spot for me ended up being around 32 IPM with 6500 RPM, just took a lot of test cuts to find it lol.

parker_hall59d ago

That .035 stepover is wasting machine time.

fionamurphy9d ago

Gotta throw my two cents in here and say nobody's talking about tool runout. I had a similar struggle on an older Fadal and spent weeks chasing feeds and speeds. Turned out my holder had like .0008" runout and swapping to a precision collet quieted everything down way more than any stepover change ever did. Maybe check that before you start dialing back your stepover and wasting time on test cuts that won't fix the real issue.