What size facemill?

Looking to buy a cheapest facemill with carbide inserts.

I've never used one before, so am wondering what size I can use.

The milling machine is an Aciera F3 with a 1hp spindle motor and 3hp feed motor.

Thanks,

Hi Chris,
3 HP seems awfully large for a feed motor.

Les.

Your spindle motor is about the same power as my Rexon mill, I use a 50 mm dia face mill with three 16 mm triangular inserts. The one originally supplied with my machine(I didn't get one) were 2 1/2" dia with six cutters, I think they may have been HSS.

Maybe the feed motor is .3HP

Ian S C

Hi Chris,

I am using a 63mm facemill with four inserts on my my milling machine (slightly larger than the Warco WM16). I don't take heavy cuts, but the facemill works well even on my lightweight machine. You shouldn't have any problems using a 63mm facemill on yours. I also have a 30mm with two inserts.

Thor

If you want to go as big as possible you might be able to get a feel for size via a fly cutter. Your question can't be answered really as size, depth of cut, speed and feed rate all determine the HP needed. More cutting points helps a bit with feed rates.

Personally if I had your machine I would probably be more interested in horizontal milling if I had the full horizontal attachment that supports a bar for cutters at both ends. Flat surfaces rather than dished due to head alignment errors.

You might find some demo's that use the machine on youtube.

John

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Edited By John W1 on 09/09/2015 13:32:42

Thanks.

The feed is 3HP, the same motor is used for the horizontal milling. I just want something I can put into the vertical head to save stopping things around.

Chris

Aciera F3 !!! - lucky you. A superb and flexible bit of kit. I ' ve seen one but, as it was in the boss' partitioned off section of the workshop , I never got to use it!

Norman

I've heard of that before, the boss at a machine shop keeping one of these for his own use!

It may be a case of what mounting you have and what you can find to fit it directly to maintain rigidity. Also the range of feed speeds may be limited as is often the case with horizontals used for feed. One way of looking at it is that it is 2/3 the size of a Bridgeport.

They use iso 30 or w20 fittings. Min feed 12mm per min - couldn't help looking. That may be with the motor in low speed mode.

Personally I would rather find the right Thiel with it's bits an pieces. No space for one though. It's really unusual for me rate German machinery highly but that one can be really interesting but a pain to set up.

John

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That's it. Mine has W20 on both spindles. I have a W20 - MT2 adaptor though.

Minimum powerfeed speed in low power is 12mm/min as you say, maximum in high power is 252mm/min. What would I use with a face mill, the slowest?

No point asking me I have only used 10in dia ones on rather large machines and have hand fed. Never at home. I have been toying with getting one for my dore westbury but am not keen on the price of re tipping the ones that take a lot of inserts. I'm inclined to try one around 3in dia but wouldn't expect to be able to take much of a cut with it. That takes 2 morse but also has a myford spindle nose so I would have to make something to fit it on that.

I'm pretty sure you will find a demo of face cutters using your machine on youtube and can get and idea of size from that. I'd guess w20 arbours are bound to be available. It's a schaublin design.

John

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The feed speed depends on both the diameter and number of teeth (inserts).

First the spindle speed is calculated using the cutter diameter to give the right surface speed of the tooth through the cut for the material. That gives you the number of cuts per second.

Then you decide the depth of cut (sideways) per tooth and hence the rate of advance needed to meet this.