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Originally posted by bigben2k
It's easier to appreciate your work, from that perspective! Very nice!!! It might also explain the odd Maze2 channels!
While on the topic of "play"... if you use an endmill to make a straight channel, how much wider can you expect the cut to be? Can I assume that hand feeding will make a difference?
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it really depends on the mill and the software setting for the CNC. Most CNC softeware will attemp to compensate for whatever the user inputs. Mine it set to .003". If I make a .25" strait pass it usually comes out around .26" to .28" depending on how sharp the endmill is. The Spiral shown above ended up being .29"-.31" wide chanels depending on what angle it was cutting. It is odd that the mill will cut smoother going one direction than it will the other, but it kinda makes since as you are going against the rotation of the endmill in one direction. I colapsed the first 2 attemps and ended up having to double the amount of passes and going as slow as the CNC softeware would let me.
Doing it by hand can greatly improve results as you can feel when it starts to go to fast and slow down. But you need to have a good steady hand and/or adjustable power feed. My CNC software is limited in speed ajustment so the slowest setting is faster than I would like, especially for copper. But for strait cuts and small endmills I think it will do justy as good as more expensive mills as the endmill starts to become the weak point instead of the mill when using tiny endmills.