Cutting Full Depth and Better Dust RemovalUsing our new water cooled 2.2kW spindle has benefitted us with less wear on our end mills and the ability to extract almost all of the dust created from milling. With the higher torque of the spindle, we are now able to mill at full depth, enabling an even wear along the full length of the flutes of the end mill. With the design of a new dust shoe and that the spindle does not use a blower to cool the spindle, dust is better extracted.
If you can achieve cutting at full depth, the dividends will pay off in the end. Cutting at full depth with a CNC machine requires a strong frame and a spindle that will not bog down under high torque. We attached a 2.2kW spindle to the greenBull for testing a while back and we have been very pleased with the performance.
Full depth cutting is important for two reasons: getting the job done faster, and less wear on the end mill. If the end mill is subject only partial depth per pass, that portion of the end mill will wear and the remaining length of the end mill will not exhibit much wear at all. In other words, if it takes four passes to finally get to the full depth, then that end mill will get four times the amount of wear, so a full depth pass will allow the end mill to last four times longer.
Dust removal has gotten a lot better with a few enhancements on the dust shoe and a little help from the non-air cooling spindle. When there is no air blowing through the spindle, the chips (dust and particles of the material being cut/milled) caused by milling are not blown around the shop. Instead, the chip stay in place for the most part. Sure, the violent cutting action of the end mill turning and ejecting the chips will cause a little mess, but with a dust shoe and vacuum, this condition is controlled.
The new dust shoe that we designed for use with this spindle is actually a separate piece that can be removed easily with two screws, or rare earth magnets could be attached for an even easier removal of the dust shoe.
The dust shoe perimeter has both a brush and plastic to keep the dust contained in the vacuum. The brush is relatively rigid, but has slits that dust can pass, Plastic is attached outside of the brush to maintain a better vacuum and the brush prevents the plastic from being sucked-in.
With both the new dust shoe and full depth cutting, spindles of this kind will drastically change how the machining is done. We will soon have these spindles in stock and the dust shoe and spindle mounts will be designed for the blackToe, blackFoot, and even blueChick CNC machine models.