Anyone cutting thin copper sheeting with their 1F? I am planning on buying a steel cutting bit to cut out thin copper sheeting to use as an inlay. I figure if the bit can cut steel it can cut thin copper. My question is more about lubrication. I do not have the capacity to install or use water lubrication. A couple of the bits I have looked up also suggest air flow as lubrication. I have a high capacity aquarium pump hooked up to the system that I use for the 14W JTech laser. Think that would be enough? Any thoughts on feeds and speeds for copper? I have these same questions out to a couple of manufacturers but haven’t heard back yet and thought I would learn from others experience here.
Copper is verry “sticky” when being cut. It tends to plug the endmill if not lubricated. WD40 works well, but it will make a mess of your spoil board.
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I have cut silver, aluminium and brass. from my limited experience Brass cuts nicely, then aluminum. I may need check annealing (or not) silver; I wasn’t that rigorous with my notes. I found lubrication (I wasn’t flooding) made things worse - better to blow away any chips
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Also use a 2 flute endmill, 4 flute will load up, just use compressed air to blow chips away, and dot go to deep ,light cuts.
I have successfully, albeit painfully slowly, cut aluminum using my first CNC, a 3020 laptop model using a coolant/mister block (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07HT1Y4BK) and ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL. Granted, the IPA was likely more of a coolant than a lubricant, but it still worked very well to clear the chips and keep the end mill nice and cold. And, the IPA just evaporates leaving no oil or residue behind. I used about 20 psi on the air compressor and dropped the lubricant tube directly into the IPA bottle.
The only reason I haven’t cut metal on my Onefinity is because of the metal chips and no way to keep them out of moving parts like bearings. These photos were taken after cutting out a part from 1/4" stock which not only took 2 hours but threw tiny pieces of metal EVERYWHERE. If you look close at the one X-axis bearing, you will see how I now have to find the time to completely disassemble the entire machine including all of the bearing blocks, clean, oil, and reassemble.
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