First test with Datron single flute end mills in aluminium PART 1 - CNC 6040 ROUTER-

In this first part of a two video series I’m testing a couple of single flute end mills from the german company Datron on my CNC 6040 router.

Affiliate links to budget chineese end mills:

Tool 1: ⅛ inch 2 flute: http://bit.ly/2N2DyEE
Tool 2: 4 mm 3 flute: http://bit.ly/2N2DPXZ
Tool 3: 5 mm 3 flute: http://bit.ly/2N2DPXZ
Tool 4: 4 mm 2 flute: http://bit.ly/2N1KYb2
Tool 5: 4 mm 2 flute: http://bit.ly/2SxnT6g
Tool 6: 6 mm 2 flute chamfer: http://bit.ly/2tmihfX

- Datron 5mm end mill (0068085E)
- Datron 4mm end mill (0068803E)


You can find tons of different end mills with als kinds of shapes and flute counts. I always assumed that more flutes meant a better working tool but I learned that this isn't always the case. If you want to mill aluminium on a CNC 6040 router it is important to take in mind the limitations of the machine. I always tried to take a as deep as possible cut with the biggest possible stepover. The CNC 6040 router hasn’t the best rigidity so this approach puts a lot of cutting forces on the machine causing all kinds of unwanted vibrations. These vibrations limit the surface finish and to get some kind of a good result you have to run the machine very slow.

The new approach that I'm going to test in this video is taking a shallow cut with the full diameter of the tool as stepover. This will hopefully allow me to mill aluminium full feedrate without getting the vibrations from the other approach. With the current controller my CNC 6040 router can handle around 1000 mm/min and the spindle maxes out at 24.000 rpm. When searching for end mills that can work with these specs I found the german company Datron. They were so nice to send me a couple of end mills to test.

I tested a 5mm (0068085E) and a 4mm (0068803E) tool in this video. When the tools made the first couple of aluminium chips on my cnc 6040 router I was amazed by how much more clean these tools cut. When milling with cheap chinese end mills the cutting sounds sound wrong. They do cut the aluminium and they are perfect to practice and test with but the difference with the more expensive tools is big.

Besides cutting some random shapes or letters out of the aluminium I also made some nice functional parts. I invested in a better machine clamp and an edge finder and that helped me a lot with milling some small wheels out of 2011 aluminium. These wheels are going to replace the wingnuts on the fixturing of my cnc 6040 router.

- Datron 5mm end mill (0068085E)
- Datron 4mm end mill (0068803E)

Affiliate links to budget chinese tools:
Tool 1: ⅛ inch 2 flute: http://bit.ly/2N2DyEE
Tool 2: 4 mm 3 flute: http://bit.ly/2N2DPXZ
Tool 3: 5 mm 3 flute: http://bit.ly/2N2DPXZ
Tool 4: 4 mm 2 flute: http://bit.ly/2N1KYb2
Tool 5: 4 mm 2 flute: http://bit.ly/2SxnT6g
Tool 6: 6 mm 2 flute chamfer: http://bit.ly/2tmihfX