As a tool sharpener I would like to point out that this would also put most of your wear on the face of the end mill which would leave your flutes nice and sharp to clean up the faces of the slot. And sharpening the face of a end mill is much quicker and easier than the helical flutes. Great idea!
Reminds me of my school days - "quickest way to remove metal is to drill", this just takes it a step further. I'll certainly be making use of it :) Thanks NYC CNC
Great video John! I have never tried plunge milling (intentionally), but I will now! I also have to say how great your videos are looking these days. Fresh look and great effects without being gimmicky looking. Julie is doing a fantastic job! Kudos!
I use this method a bit because I'm a chicken when it comes to slotting and figured it was a bit dodgy so glad I watched this. I feel redeemed. Not on CNC just a mill drill, today had a section to take out of a cylindrical housing with a 6mm mill, ran a flat with 20mm mill end and as usual worried about busting the 6mm I went for the 2 tooth plunge mill and just plunged it through by bit to remove the section then a side sweep to clean the edges.
That's awesome you showed this, I've been a machinist for about 10 years, and I just learned this about a year ago. I was amazed when my friend showed me this technique, and I kinda felt like an idiot for never figuring this out myself, it is so efficient, I don't know why you don't see it used more in programing.
Magic Smoke FPV It’s considered “old school” tech. HEM toolpaths and performance endmills have largely displaced the need for plunge milling, but there’s still times it’s the best option to use.
Most CAM packages do have plunge roughing options. SolidCAM can run a plunge mill pattern on contours and pockets and has a 3D roughing that will plunge mill out an entire part. One thing, and I’m not sure how to do it in Fusion off the top of my head, but at the bottom of its plunge it should back up about .05 -.100 before retracting so it doesn’t rub on its way back up and clears the floor of the relief angle on the end of the cutter so the floor is flat. This strategy also works incredibly well for hard materials at 50+ Rockwell even in shallow slots.
HSM needs a strategy for this. Agreed. But you could use one of the boring cycles instead of the standard drilling one to get the shift. And in HSMWorks... you can use the pattern fill command to easily get the points for plunge milling a pocket... no such command in Inventor & Fusion. They only have pattern along path, so you would have to sketch the path, place a point, then pattern along it.
Scott Moyse How can you “hack” a preset canned cycle like G76? G76 stops the spindle at the bottom of the bore, there’s no M code stop, it’s built into the canned cycle and there’s nothing the post can do to change a preset canned cycle in the machine controller. Now. You could build a custom macro within Fusion to accommodate a plunge milling with wall retraction, or place a Macro-B “plunge mill” sub-routine on the machine and call it out that way. But you can’t “hack the post” to have it alter how a factory preset canned cycle is run on the machine. Unless you dive deep into the machine parameters and alter the hardcoded canned cycle. All of the above are way more work than its worth just to plunge mill with a wall retraction.
Occams Sawzall yes you can. That's the beauty of the HSM post system. You force an expanded cycle, then you can interrupt the output and modify it to post the code how you want.
I've managed to do this entirely in cam using a linear pattern there and "getting lucky" with being able to select a point on the part geometry. You could make a sketch with a single point for your entry if you had to and use CAM patterns for the rest. Might save time going back and forth while your trying to find the optimal step over.
Nice vid. This method has been common in mold making for decades. The CAM would layout the best configuration of Swiss cheese to maximize material removal.
I saw an old IMTS video where they showed plunge roughing (with a large insert drill) combined wigh high feed machining to make light work of creating pockets in titanium aerospace parts. The pockets did not need crazy dimensions as they were merely for weight reduction but the time and money saved using that combo was incredible. Given all the stuff that has happened in Fusion it is just a matter of time really before plunge milling becomes an option I feel.
Cool that you were able to force Fusion to do a plunge rouge routine. Systems with an actual plunge roughing function can usually do a 3-axis step away from where they just plunged so the inserts are not rubbing on the way back up, extending usable insert life. Things like hydroform dies and deep molds are really well suited for plunge roughing, on those parts you usually start by roughing the deepest areas and going uphill from there.
I've only plunge milled for features where there was a slot being machined. One time was a 3mm wide slot in 4140 and it was over an inch deep. No way the roughing endmill would ever last via traditional milling, so I plunged with a 1/8 inch solid carbide endmill and went with a .005" stepover. Took a while, but it worked. It was a one piece order, we were going to lose money on it. Ended up losing a few grand on the order and it was a few months late. Don't think the customer ever did business with us again. Gotta love the people in sales.
Any thoughts on if this would shorten (slightly) the life of the bearings in the spindle? I guess they are AC bearings and depending on the angle of the contact they might be biased to the usual high side/ radial loads. Of course they will also take some axial load to allow drilling plus a helix end mill will pull down on the spindle and they need to cope with that.
This is a fantastic technique to avoid work hardening difficult materials like stainless and 6-4 titanium when you can't climb mill (like on manual machines)! You're also saving your tools from an unsteady hand by using the quill feed.
Plunge milling is very complimentary to conversational controllers li,e the prototrak. I've used it for quite a long time with those platforms simply because I can copy, repeat with offset as my step over. Very fast to program and saves a lot of time not needing another op. also many times no tool change. Oddly enough, it has never struck me to use it when programming with CAM. Sometimes my idiocy astounds me.
Solidcam 2016 has this built-in option where you can create pockets or rough the bulk with plunging..it saves cycle time. You can rough a tight pocket or slot this way and finish it with other milling methods...
Most of the main cam processors offer plunge milling strategies, however Autodesk for example just point blank refuse to offer any kind of support on it. The tech advisor told us they had so many claims due to destroyed machines they no longer supported it. Still one of the most efficient ways to get material out of deep cavities though!
Would be interesting to know how long it would have taken to plunge mill that big step in that clevis part rather than the traditional milling that you used. What if you used a superfly?
Kennametal makes plunge mill, they use square inserts 5/16 & 7/16. We use them alot at work. They work great on Titanium 6Al-4V ELI and the like. Gibbs has plunge mill ruffing cycles.
This is excellent! I first saw plunge roughing in an Ingersoll promo video a couple of years ago but had not seen it be used at all. As always, great presentation of a very interesting strategy. P.S. It's been a few years since I used anything other than HSM but I hadn't seen it available as a built-in strategy in other CAM packages (EdgeCAM, SolidCAM, TopSolid)
It’s in SolidCAM as options under 2.5D pocketing and profile. It’s not a listed stand alone toolpath. Basically you can turn any 2.5D toolpath into a plunge roughing toolpath. There’s also an option under 3D HSR to convert to plunge roughing of an entire model or model section.
Finally! Been waiting for this a long time... I’ve been using a similar method for while now and i allways wondered why F360 didnt have some kind of strategy like this. Do you know if autodesk is working on it?
I have a standing topic in suggestions on the fusion360 forum since like 2 years back of them implementing plunge cutting in the 2D library of CAM.. still not one answer on this.. Sweet that others are looking at it as well now, especially you and we might get som traction on it instead of hacking it like this. (been doing the same for a while)
I am curious as to the relationship between plunge speed and stepover. In school, on the manual mill, we plunged through-slots at 1/3 D stepover and it was very fast.
Finn NA you incur little to no side wear so the bulk of the tool is still fine. And as long as it’s a tool with a corner radius, even the radius is fine when side milling with it. Typically the bottom of the tool is wasted in normal milling, so you’re in fact using even more of the tool as plunge milling won’t damage the tool for side milling.
Looked like you were going a bit deeper than you flute length on the 1/4 flat mill. You can get away with that on the plunging, but not the finish side milling.
I do this all the time with a Forstner bit. Seems like an end mill would be a lot slower at the RPMs a drill press gives you. Of course, you can do the same thing with a plunge router--a router bit is basically an end mill.
Only if plunging the entire diameter of the cutter, you would need a center cutting endmill. If only using the edge you can measure the flute on the face of the endmill and step that distance.
You can use most any tool, including non-center cutting tools. Tools with a large clearance angle on the end work better, but it’s not needed, a flat bottom endmill will still plunge mill just fine.
in alum what u were doing was fine that would nvr work in ss or super alloyes at the bot of the cut u have to arc away and not rub the cutter with the metal
Nils Means you have to pull away from the wall after you plunge down, which most CAM software that has plunge milling allows you to do. It prevents the tool from rubbing the wall on the retract and damaging the tool. Plunge milling should go, step forward at the top height, plunge to depth, move backwards away from the position you plunged at, retract up, repeat.
saul aparicio And for the record you don’t actually *need* to move away before retracting. You just need to go back and clean up the floor with another toolpath is all. Easier to do everything in one toolpath if you can. But seeing as Fusion doesn’t have a plunge milling cycle and one has to be cobbled together, there’s no need to bang your head against the wall trying to make the perfect plunge milling cycle. Easier to just do another toolpath for cleanup if using Fusion.
Nicely done. Before I got into CNC I had seen this (now 9 year old) video of a router using plunge roughing then 3D finishing a wooden train engine: th-cam.com/video/FZC8v0UnWdM/w-d-xo.html I've been wondering since then when I'm going to see this strategy used more often. I'd also love to see it in Fusion someday.
As a tool sharpener I would like to point out that this would also put most of your wear on the face of the end mill which would leave your flutes nice and sharp to clean up the faces of the slot. And sharpening the face of a end mill is much quicker and easier than the helical flutes. Great idea!
Good point
Reminds me of my school days - "quickest way to remove metal is to drill", this just takes it a step further. I'll certainly be making use of it :) Thanks NYC CNC
Great video John! I have never tried plunge milling (intentionally), but I will now!
I also have to say how great your videos are looking these days. Fresh look and great effects without being gimmicky looking. Julie is doing a fantastic job! Kudos!
love the clips of john shaking and noding his head
I use this method a bit because I'm a chicken when it comes to slotting and figured it was a bit dodgy so glad I watched this. I feel redeemed.
Not on CNC just a mill drill, today had a section to take out of a cylindrical housing with a 6mm mill, ran a flat with 20mm mill end and as usual worried about busting the 6mm I went for the 2 tooth plunge mill and just plunged it through by bit to remove the section then a side sweep to clean the edges.
Looks like you know the drill.
I am doing this a while now, and I never thought on using a drill with a flat tip. If it works you are a genius not yet discovered
I would have taken that right to a band saw... This may be my second favorite WW yet, after the thread milling one (109). Awesome stuff!
one "pro" of sawing it out is you are left with a useable chunk of stock vs a pile of chips...depends on the workflow etc though
i'd take it straight to the EDM
we bought two old agiecuts (for $11k) since we had the space and it's awesome
Using a tool with a reduced neck and a stub flute length could save some tooling costs. Great channel.
That's awesome you showed this, I've been a machinist for about 10 years, and I just learned this about a year ago. I was amazed when my friend showed me this technique, and I kinda felt like an idiot for never figuring this out myself, it is so efficient, I don't know why you don't see it used more in programing.
Magic Smoke FPV
It’s considered “old school” tech.
HEM toolpaths and performance endmills have largely displaced the need for plunge milling, but there’s still times it’s the best option to use.
Most CAM packages do have plunge roughing options.
SolidCAM can run a plunge mill pattern on contours and pockets and has a 3D roughing that will plunge mill out an entire part.
One thing, and I’m not sure how to do it in Fusion off the top of my head, but at the bottom of its plunge it should back up about .05 -.100 before retracting so it doesn’t rub on its way back up and clears the floor of the relief angle on the end of the cutter so the floor is flat.
This strategy also works incredibly well for hard materials at 50+ Rockwell even in shallow slots.
HSM needs a strategy for this. Agreed. But you could use one of the boring cycles instead of the standard drilling one to get the shift. And in HSMWorks... you can use the pattern fill command to easily get the points for plunge milling a pocket... no such command in Inventor & Fusion. They only have pattern along path, so you would have to sketch the path, place a point, then pattern along it.
Scott Moyse
Those bore cycles stop the spindle before shifting though...
Occams Sawzall which can be hacked in the post
Scott Moyse
How can you “hack” a preset canned cycle like G76? G76 stops the spindle at the bottom of the bore, there’s no M code stop, it’s built into the canned cycle and there’s nothing the post can do to change a preset canned cycle in the machine controller.
Now. You could build a custom macro within Fusion to accommodate a plunge milling with wall retraction, or place a Macro-B “plunge mill” sub-routine on the machine and call it out that way.
But you can’t “hack the post” to have it alter how a factory preset canned cycle is run on the machine. Unless you dive deep into the machine parameters and alter the hardcoded canned cycle. All of the above are way more work than its worth just to plunge mill with a wall retraction.
Occams Sawzall yes you can. That's the beauty of the HSM post system. You force an expanded cycle, then you can interrupt the output and modify it to post the code how you want.
The best part of plunge roughing is its very easy to sharpen the end of a knackered end mill and give it a new lease of life as a plunge rougher !!
I've managed to do this entirely in cam using a linear pattern there and "getting lucky" with being able to select a point on the part geometry. You could make a sketch with a single point for your entry if you had to and use CAM patterns for the rest. Might save time going back and forth while your trying to find the optimal step over.
Nice vid. This method has been common in mold making for decades. The CAM would layout the best configuration of Swiss cheese to maximize material removal.
how to plunge in a mold with full tool diameter ?
Bout time this was recognized as a good way to chew through stock quickly.
Manual machinists have been doing this forever.
Great video
I saw an old IMTS video where they showed plunge roughing (with a large insert drill) combined wigh high feed machining to make light work of creating pockets in titanium aerospace parts. The pockets did not need crazy dimensions as they were merely for weight reduction but the time and money saved using that combo was incredible. Given all the stuff that has happened in Fusion it is just a matter of time really before plunge milling becomes an option I feel.
Nope.
The best channel on you tube! John is great!
Cool that you were able to force Fusion to do a plunge rouge routine. Systems with an actual plunge roughing function can usually do a 3-axis step away from where they just plunged so the inserts are not rubbing on the way back up, extending usable insert life. Things like hydroform dies and deep molds are really well suited for plunge roughing, on those parts you usually start by roughing the deepest areas and going uphill from there.
I use plunge milling on a manual mill. Was taught that method on "Tom's Techniques" TH-cam channel quite some time ago.
I didn’t even know rough plunging was a thing! Great video.
I've only plunge milled for features where there was a slot being machined. One time was a 3mm wide slot in 4140 and it was over an inch deep. No way the roughing endmill would ever last via traditional milling, so I plunged with a 1/8 inch solid carbide endmill and went with a .005" stepover. Took a while, but it worked. It was a one piece order, we were going to lose money on it.
Ended up losing a few grand on the order and it was a few months late. Don't think the customer ever did business with us again. Gotta love the people in sales.
I believe it is Tom's Techniques that swears by plunge cutting as much as possible.
Thanks John Another great example of alternate solutions to a given goal.
I use this on my Shopbot making HDPE parts. Setting up the toolpaths is horrific. Results worth it. Great Video.
Great video, John. I need to try this out when prototyping some heat sinks with super deep fins!
Any thoughts on if this would shorten (slightly) the life of the bearings in the spindle? I guess they are AC bearings and depending on the angle of the contact they might be biased to the usual high side/ radial loads. Of course they will also take some axial load to allow drilling plus a helix end mill will pull down on the spindle and they need to cope with that.
This is a fantastic technique to avoid work hardening difficult materials like stainless and 6-4 titanium when you can't climb mill (like on manual machines)! You're also saving your tools from an unsteady hand by using the quill feed.
Plunge milling is very complimentary to conversational controllers li,e the prototrak. I've used it for quite a long time with those platforms simply because I can copy, repeat with offset as my step over. Very fast to program and saves a lot of time not needing another op. also many times no tool change. Oddly enough, it has never struck me to use it when programming with CAM. Sometimes my idiocy astounds me.
Solidcam 2016 has this built-in option where you can create pockets or rough the bulk with plunging..it saves cycle time. You can rough a tight pocket or slot this way and finish it with other milling methods...
You could also create a cam pattern instead of all the skecth points. I love how theres always more than 1 way to get things done.
Most of the main cam processors offer plunge milling strategies, however Autodesk for example just point blank refuse to offer any kind of support on it. The tech advisor told us they had so many claims due to destroyed machines they no longer supported it. Still one of the most efficient ways to get material out of deep cavities though!
Would be interesting to know how long it would have taken to plunge mill that big step in that clevis part rather than the traditional milling that you used. What if you used a superfly?
Kennametal makes plunge mill, they use square inserts 5/16 & 7/16. We use them alot at work. They work great on Titanium 6Al-4V ELI and the like. Gibbs has plunge mill ruffing cycles.
totally going to use this on a part coming up.. thanks for the tip / video
1:35 That's one happy John
This is excellent! I first saw plunge roughing in an Ingersoll promo video a couple of years ago but had not seen it be used at all. As always, great presentation of a very interesting strategy.
P.S. It's been a few years since I used anything other than HSM but I hadn't seen it available as a built-in strategy in other CAM packages (EdgeCAM, SolidCAM, TopSolid)
EdgeCAM has had it for about five years, Hypermill had it in 2000.
Yup, last experience with EdgeCAM was in 2011. I think EdgeCAM 12 (not 2012).
It’s in SolidCAM as options under 2.5D pocketing and profile. It’s not a listed stand alone toolpath.
Basically you can turn any 2.5D toolpath into a plunge roughing toolpath. There’s also an option under 3D HSR to convert to plunge roughing of an entire model or model section.
That would work on a manual mill as well. A deep slot on a horizontal mill is a pain.
Thanks,
John
Finally!
Been waiting for this a long time...
I’ve been using a similar method for while now and i allways wondered why F360 didnt have some kind of strategy like this.
Do you know if autodesk is working on it?
also pre drilling will save expensive tools and time :) great video
Certainly a strategy with advantages.
It sounds great to know this way👍
I have a standing topic in suggestions on the fusion360 forum since like 2 years back of them implementing plunge cutting in the 2D library of CAM.. still not one answer on this.. Sweet that others are looking at it as well now, especially you and we might get som traction on it instead of hacking it like this. (been doing the same for a while)
*i tried plunge milling on my gf but my tool only last 10 seconds*
Next time try with a little WD40.
1:25 LOL, what a character :-) For my bag of tricks? I am gonna need a much bigger bag, thanks to NYC CNC!
I'm gonna make the "plunge" for one of these. Really deep
Does the machining time increase or decrease compared to side milling?
how do we calculate the max feed rate of plunge milling at a given spindle RPM?
I am curious as to the relationship between plunge speed and stepover. In school, on the manual mill, we plunged through-slots at 1/3 D stepover and it was very fast.
How do you feel about all the extra wear on the end of the end mill and not spreading the wear out over more of the bit... is it worth it???
Finn NA you incur little to no side wear so the bulk of the tool is still fine. And as long as it’s a tool with a corner radius, even the radius is fine when side milling with it.
Typically the bottom of the tool is wasted in normal milling, so you’re in fact using even more of the tool as plunge milling won’t damage the tool for side milling.
Plus the bottom cut of the end mill is super easy to re-grind
What material did you use for plunge milling bro. Thanks...
@nyccnc looking at more recent videos, i seldomly see you guys use plunge milling.
Do you actually still use it?
Pretty cool really
Awesome video
Looked like you were going a bit deeper than you flute length on the 1/4 flat mill. You can get away with that on the plunging, but not the finish side milling.
I wondered about this when it comes to F360.
How is the material cubic rate on this, compared to normal more conventional work?
can you do the slot in one pass? ive done that before on manual but never tried with cnc.
Could anyone tell me the difference b/w a 5 axis machine and Mill turn ...?
In terms of axis and where these machines can be used ?
Thank you.
Should be stepping off the part at the bottom of the cut, kinder on the insert as it doest cut on exit.
what about same moves on steel?
You can see some deflection at 2:20 when the tool Is retracting .
I could have sworn a while back you where against plunging with a mill bit.
Use a G81 drilling can cycle.
Typically, what % of tool diameter would you use for stopover please?
@Ed Rees how do you calculate the feed rate? thank you
still a problem with the retract
I wonder if I can do this with a drill press and a cheap end mill in wood....
I do this all the time with a Forstner bit. Seems like an end mill would be a lot slower at the RPMs a drill press gives you. Of course, you can do the same thing with a plunge router--a router bit is basically an end mill.
The end mill needs a certain shape on the end so it can plunge and not fail right?
Only if plunging the entire diameter of the cutter, you would need a center cutting endmill. If only using the edge you can measure the flute on the face of the endmill and step that distance.
Helps tool life if you use a tool with a corner radius or chamfer. Clean up with a second tool.
You can use most any tool, including non-center cutting tools.
Tools with a large clearance angle on the end work better, but it’s not needed, a flat bottom endmill will still plunge mill just fine.
in alum what u were doing was fine that would nvr work in ss or super alloyes at the bot of the cut u have to arc away and not rub the cutter with the metal
saul aparicio
@Occams Sawzall said it works incredibly well on hard materials, 50 Rockwell +
Nils yeah i dose lol i nvr said it didnt i said ud have to arc away at the bottom
saul aparicio ops, you did!
Tbh I still don't understand what you mean.
Nils
Means you have to pull away from the wall after you plunge down, which most CAM software that has plunge milling allows you to do.
It prevents the tool from rubbing the wall on the retract and damaging the tool.
Plunge milling should go, step forward at the top height, plunge to depth, move backwards away from the position you plunged at, retract up, repeat.
saul aparicio
And for the record you don’t actually *need* to move away before retracting. You just need to go back and clean up the floor with another toolpath is all. Easier to do everything in one toolpath if you can. But seeing as Fusion doesn’t have a plunge milling cycle and one has to be cobbled together, there’s no need to bang your head against the wall trying to make the perfect plunge milling cycle. Easier to just do another toolpath for cleanup if using Fusion.
Please add new wideo of plunge milling. Sourtcam has automative plunge milling. No need to make sketch and add point rectangular
that is what i do with manual mill :)
No metric info :((
It is wednesday my dudes
oh be careful.. now all those end mills won´t be sold at the normal rate,
their gonna find out who´s responsible for this..
I hope you had the rapid turned down. Otherwise that machine is sad. Really sad.
Joe Sikkspac
It’s a tormach. It only has a 1.5hp spindle and is a light duty machine. But it only costs $7k-$10 and doesn’t require 3 phase power.
Nicely done. Before I got into CNC I had seen this (now 9 year old) video of a router using plunge roughing then 3D finishing a wooden train engine: th-cam.com/video/FZC8v0UnWdM/w-d-xo.html
I've been wondering since then when I'm going to see this strategy used more often. I'd also love to see it in Fusion someday.
Their goes your inserts when doing that I bet it is really hard on the inserts
Crossbow Hunter
Nope. Not at all really.
Not on Aluminum lol!
Magic Smoke FPV it may gum up cuz aluminum is gummy
Only if your feed rate and chip load is wrong lol.
Gummy? Try machining copper.
first!!