Router attachment

[gamble]

Anyone here use a router and how well do you like it?

Wondering how well I can do some aluminum

Also, what would be the best way to secure a sheet of material on my water table so it doesn't move since it will be getting abused with vibration

[acourtjester]

check this guy he does a lot of CNC router work with aluminum.
https://www.youtube.com/user/radioshack7

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4-p3ZGlThg

[sawdust1]

Friend just finished his table that has a router on it. Works excellent! He is running over a table full of holes that are hooked to a vacuum. The shop vac supplies enough to function as a hold down. I will take pictures on my next day off.
He spent some time finding the correct fluting bits and spindle speeds, cut depth per pass and travel speed. The vac table is mounted over his plasma table and spacers stop it from moving.

david

[Capstone]

I have a dual-duty setup. I'm right in the middle of building a T-slot hold-down setup for the router. I do mostly plastics. I haven't tried Aluminum yet.

[rdj357]

I do some wood. I have a pretty unhandy setup for the wood bed right now but one of these days when I have some time I'll come up with something better!! Metal milling usually needs a cooling liquid so I'm not sure how easy it would be to integrate into a dual purpose setup but it could certainly be done pretty easily with a dedicated setup.

[msimpson99]

I have designed and built several CNC Routers. I even have a couple books out on them.

Just about any CNC machine can mill aluminum as long as:
It has very littl backlash
You can clear the chips
You can keep the bit lubricated
You can hold your stock firmly

Since most plasma CNC machines are not designed to handle the loads put on them for milling operations, you may have to take shallower cuts. If I am doing deep cuts, I will use air to clear the chips and a mister to keep the bit from getting gummed up.

Im currently working on converting one of my large KRMx02 machines to be both a CNC Router and plasma machine.

Something to consider. One of my KRMx02 machines (the smallest) has a cutting area of 18"x14". Since this machine was originally meant to be a demo machine and made for easy transport it had a removable table. It was one of the heaviest components on the machine. Now take that size up to say a 48" x 48" A rigid table with aluminum Tslot is going to be very heavy.

On my larger conversion, I am looking at a table that has bearings for sliding back, reveling the slats for the plasma. There are other considerations. My removable table hast two sheets of 3/4" particle board then aluminum extrusion for the surface. A water table could be an issue here.

The last though is how you will attach the router. It needs to be easy to get on and off and needs to be very rigid. Any kind of mechanical backlash will not work when milling aluminum. Its just not that forgiving.

As for the router bits, Onsrud makes several bits designed for high speed routers to mill aluminum. They have some very nice Oflutes that I use.

[Capstone]

I'll just add a bit more info. I have a Precision Plasma HD setup with a very heavy duty gantry. It's my attempt to create a dual purpose bridge between Plasma and Wood/Plastics and maybe some day Alum milling.

Unfortunately, the reality is that you really can't have both a light weight high speed gantry crucial for thin metal plasma cutting with zero vibration and at the same time rock solid slow moving accurate router setup for wood/plastics/alum routing. I am in the bland middle when it comes to both extremes. I can't cut anything thinner than 16ga. The router piece works well, but I have a water table which make perfect sense for Plasma, but is a real pain in the ass to convert to cutting solids.
Add to that the Velox Floating "Z" which needs to back clamp-hacked for milling and you're starting to see how the two disciplines are hard to mix.

I've probably gotten as far as possible with this setup. I know for sure that I wouldn't be able to ramp up to daily production with a full schedule without sacrificing some level of quality. When I have the space, I will for sure build a 2nd table that's just for Plasma. Surprised I say Plasma? Yeah. The HD Gantry weighs 120lbs easy and the entire table is better suited for routing at this point; minus the water table.

How I secure my material first a sheet of coroplast on the water table then two sheets of 3/4in MDF. The CoroPlast prevents the moisture from soaking into the MDF and finally a series of clamps. I'm expecting some t-slot rails today which I'm going to install in to the MDF for more uniform clamping of templates, workpieces and/or spoil boards.

[msimpson99]

I would be interested in the T-slot you are using. On my router tables I use 8020 1030. The 1030 is a little overkill as it has T-slots on both sides, but this allows me to flip a single piece if I mill through my waster board. (happens more than I like)

I have also used Wall slot, which is a MDF product with T-slots. This particular machine is a lightweight machine I was experimenting with. It has no where the mass of my KRMx02, but costs 1/3rd the cost to build. The table on this machine uses 2 sheets of 3/4" particle board and 1 sheet of the 3/4" wall slot. It works very well.

Here is a vid of me surfacing the wall slot.
https://youtu.be/suITn2Z_dNo


The gantry on my KRMx02 machines is pretty massive. I started doing plasma experiments about a year ago and was able to get the KRMx02 tuned so that I could do over .3Gs. And speeds to about 1000IPM. originally I though that the mass of my machine would not be conducive to plasma, but now I have revised things a bit.

This video shows how well the acceleration works on my router.
https://youtu.be/bTc2v_qYARc


I'm not sure any of this is helpful as in this case I'm going the opposite direction. Router -> Plasma. That said when I do the plasma CNC book I will take a lot from the KRMx02 design.

[gamble]

I and hoping the torchmate is more rigid than my shapoko3 I had. That worked ok for some stuff but still had some little bugs and I didn't care for my software options.
But having the water table will make it hard to secure a piece of metal. Maybe if I layer a thick piece of wood across the entire table and clamped it down. The secured the metal to that. But I can't guarantee it to be flat
I am looking for something to feed my need while I learn and save up cash for an enclosed cnc mill. I also have the same velox lifter. I assume I will have to take off the magnetic breakaway too

[msimpson99]

I have a small table I made that's only 21" x 35". Its two pieces of MDF and some 1x3 Aluminum Tslot. I just C clamped it to one of my larger DIY plasma tables I had at the time.

Worked ok for general porpose routing, but I prefer an aligned and surfaced table that has front and side fences and homing switches that home to the fences. This makes part setup very fast and accurate.

It worked very well.