Today in Episode 3 of the series I am attempting to machine the Titan 5M part. I have had to shrink this part to fit into the 1.5 inch round bar stock that I had available but it retains all the key features of the larger official version. This part is interesting because the most efficient way, in terms of material waste, is to machine it from round stock given that it is a round part.

This part took me a few attempts to get right but the final go turned out pretty well albeit short of a contoured finishing pass to improve the surface finish of the start shape a tad.

Holding round things in a square vice with no V grooves etc. available in the standard jaws meant it was time to make my first ever soft jaws! In addition there was user interface work to do to create buttons and a routine for manually finding the centre of the round stock.

Overall I am very happy with the outcome on my 3rd attempt. There is still some room for improvement in terms of toolpaths and it would be really nice to be able to thread the holes on the mill. Lastly I need to improve either the settings and/or the tool used for the engraving op as currently it looks like it’s pushing material around/melting it rather than giving a nice clean cut.

Watch the full episode below and read on further to see the details of each of the ops.

Tooling

Fixturing for this part is pretty simple and I used the same low profile vice for both the main machining ops and removing the stock from the bottom. This is the first full part I’ve done with these DLC coated end mills from Dreanique and I really am impressed. For dry cutting aluminium they are great and I’ve not had any gumming up of the end mills.

• 6mm DLC single flute end mill
• 3mm DLC single flute end mill
• 6mm 90 degree chamfer mill
• low profile vice

Machining – Soft Jaw Blanks

I opted to make the soft jaws out of some stock material I had lying around which in hindsight was certainly not the most efficient method for making them. The section I had was able to fit 3 jaws which I designed in fusion 360. I made the jaws reversible so that you can use both the top and bottom sides and therefore get two sets of fixturing for the price of 1!

Annoyingly I was unable to fit 4 full jaws in so I ended up with 3 spaced out ones and a lot of chips!

OP1002 – Adaptive Finishing

This was essentially a quick pass removing the small amount of stock I left over on the previous OP

• 6mm DLC single flute end mill
• Spindle speed: 24k RM
• Feed speed: 2388 mm/min
• feed per tooth: 0.1 mm
• Depth of cut: 25mm (limit)
• Maximum stepover: 0.5mm
• Machining time: 10 mins 47 secs

OP1003 – Bore

The millenium mill isn’t really up to big drilling ops and my experience so far has shown that boring our these holes is fine for clearance holes like these. The larger toolbit has already cleared out the counterbores but the through holes needed to be done by a 3mm end mill.

• 3mm DLC single flute end mill
• Spindle speed: 24k RM
• Feed speed: 500 mm/min
• feed per tooth: 0.02 mm
• Machining time: 36 secs

OP1004 – Edge chamfering

The lost steps from the previous OP were the primary cause of failure for this one however given I was attempting a similar material removal rate the settings were probably a bit optimistic anyway. The machine plunged in too close to the corner and then attempted to cut far deeper than it should have due to the position now being off. At this point I called it a day on this part!

• 6mm 90 deg chamfer mill
• Spindle speed: 15k RM
• Feed speed: 1000 mm/min
• feed per tooth: 0.033 mm
• Chamfer depth: 0.5mm
• Machining time: 57 secs

OP2001 – Facing off the underside stock

I flipped over the part and clamped it in the vice such that the short ends of the soft jaws were on the vice clamping faces. This way the middle one didn’t drop out as the last bits of stock are machined off.

• 6mm DLC single flute end mill
• Spindle speed: 24k RM
• Feed speed: 1000 mm/min
• feed per tooth: 0.1 mm
• Depth of cut: 1mm (limit)
• Maximum stepover: 4mm
• Machining time: 12 mins 03 secs

OP3001 – Edge chamfering

I did the final chamfers of the jaws individually because I was worried they might move in with 3 held at once.

• 6mm 90 deg chamfer mill
• Spindle speed: 15k RM
• Feed speed: 1000 mm/min
• feed per tooth: 0.033 mm
• Chamfer depth: 0.5mm
• Machining time: 57 secs

Finished soft jaws

Overall these came out really well. They were dimensionally within 0.1mm and look the part! Time to bolt them onto the vice and cut the features to hold the bar stock.

Machining Soft Jaw Features

After doing some brief research I settled on triangular cut-outs rather than matching the DIA of the bar stock. I set the depth to 3mm to match the regular jaws on this vice – mostly so I had less numbers to remember!

OP1001 – Adaptive clearing + Flats

I ran an adaptive clearing toolpath to quickly clear out the volume. Followed by a flats operation to remove the stock left over by the adaptive.

6mm DLC single flute end mill
Spindle speed: 24k RM
Feed speed: 1200 mm/min
feed per tooth: 0.05 mm
Depth of cut: 25mm (limit)
Optimal load: 0.6mm
Machining time: 2 mins 17 secs

OP1002 – Edge chamfering

I did the final chamfers of the jaws individually because I was worried they might move in with 3 held at once.

• 6mm 90 deg chamfer mill
• Spindle speed: 15k RM
• Feed speed: 1000 mm/min
• feed per tooth: 0.033 mm
• Chamfer depth: 0.5mm
• Machining time: 20 secs

Machining Titan 5M (ish)

As mentioned in the intro I had to scale this part down to fit it inside 1.5 Inch DIA bar stock but it is otherwise very similar.

OP1001 – Using adaptive to face the bottom of the stock

These blocks of stock I had were rough cut and so I needed to get the bottom side flat and cleaned up first.

• 6mm DLC single flute end mill
• Spindle speed: 24k RM
• Feed speed: 2388 mm/min
• feed per tooth: 0.1 mm
• Depth of cut: 1.5mm (limit)
• Maximum stepover: 4mm
• Machining time: 57 secs

OP1002 – Edge chamfering

A quick chamfer for the outer edge. Now this is where I realised on my first attempt that setting the datum off the end of my soft jaws (plus using the wrong tool dia) probably wasn’t the best plan (see obviously misaligned chamfer to OD). I spent some time creating a UI to probe each side of a round part and then calculate where the centre was and set that as the 0 point for that axis. My next attempt was much better!

• 6mm 90 deg chamfer mill
• Spindle speed: 15k RM
• Feed speed: 1000 mm/min
• feed per tooth: 0.033 mm
• Chamfer depth: 0.5mm
• Machining time: 57 secs

OP2001 – Adaptive Clearing + light finish pass

Just using my go to method for getting close to the net shape.

• 6mm DLC single flute end mill
• Spindle speed: 24k RM
• Feed speed: 1000 mm/min
• feed per tooth: 0.042 mm
• Depth of cut: 12mm (limit)
• Maximum stepover: 0.4mm
• Machining time:7 mins

OP2002 – Bore

I had to have quite a long stickout on the tool for this and on my first attempt I accidentally put the spindle speed in the feed box on fusion and well. It’s safe to say that didn’t go so well. Once that was fixed my 3rd attempt at this part went much more smoothly!

• 3mm DLC single flute end mill
• Spindle speed: 24k RM
• Feed speed: 500 mm/min
• feed per tooth: 0.02 mm
• Machining time: 1 min 0 secs

OP2003 – Edge chamfering

The final chamfers were a new one for me in terms of programming. The outer circumference is very close to the star shape. To be able to do the chamfer I had to use the very top section of the chamfer edge.

• 6mm 90 deg chamfer mill
• Spindle speed: 15k RM
• Feed speed: 1000 mm/min
• feed per tooth: 0.033 mm
• Chamfer depth: 0.5mm
• Machining time: 57 secs

OP2004 – Logo engraving

A little personal tweak on the design of the 5M. I swapped out the their logo for the Millenium Mill one!

• 6mm 90 deg chamfer mill
• Spindle speed: 15k RM
• Feed speed: 1000 mm/min
• feed per tooth: 0.033 mm
• Chamfer depth: 0.5mm
• Machining time: 57 secs

Stay tuned for episode 4 where I will be trying out thread milling on the Millenium Mill!