Who can reject such an excellent DLC-coated end mill?

When we process the aluminum alloy parts, we must consider some factors. Firstly, we have to know about the processing characteristics of aluminum alloy milling cutter. Here we organized several main factors that need to be paid attention to when milling aluminum alloy:

  • The hardness of aluminum alloy is low: Compared with titanium alloy and other quenched steel, the hardness of aluminum alloy is lower. Of course, the hardness of aluminum alloy after heat treatment or die-casting is also very high. The hardness of ordinary aluminum plate is generally below HRC40. Therefore, when machining aluminum alloy, the load of the tool is small. Because aluminum alloy has better thermal conductivity, the cutting temperature of milling aluminum alloy is relatively low, which can increase its milling speed.
  • Low plasticity of aluminum alloy: aluminum alloy has low plasticity and low melting point. When processing aluminum alloy, the sticking problem is serious, the chip removal performance is poor, and the surface roughness is relatively high. In fact, the main problem in machining aluminum alloys is that the sticking and roughness effects. As long as we solve the two major problems, the problem of aluminum alloy processing will be solved.
  • The tool is easy to wear: due to the use of unsuitable tool materials, when machining aluminum alloys, tool wear is often accelerated due to problems such as tool sticking and chip removal.

As mentioned in the above characteristics, the main problem of processing aluminum alloy is that the effect of sticking and roughness is not good. Therefore, in order to solve these two problems, most manufacturers of aluminum milling cutters choose not to coat the cutters.

Because most of the coatings used in common tungsten carbide end mills are TiALN coatings, this coating contains aluminum. When using an end mill with TiALN coating to process aluminum alloy, the aluminum component on the coating will react with the workpiece at high temperatures, causing the failure of the coating and the problem of increased tool wear.

The material hardness of aluminum knives is not an absolute factor. We should consider the smoothness of the cutter surface and the smoothness of chip removal. Therefore, we can choose an uncoated aluminum end mill or use a tungsten carbide milling cutter with a diamond-like carbon coating with a small friction coefficient.

Since solid carbide end mills without coating are very common in the market, today we will mainly introduce the diamond-like carbon coating end mills.

The highly polished cemented carbide end mill improves the finish of the tool. After sticking a thin layer of DLC coating on the surface of a highly polished end mill, a magical effect appeared.

Diamond-like carbon coating is referred to as “DLC coating”. Diamond-like carbon film (DLC) is an amorphous film. Due to its high hardness and high elastic modulus, low friction factor, wear resistance and good vacuum tribological properties, it is very suitable as a wear-resistant coating.

In addition, DLC coating has smoothness, which can make the tool chip removal smooth, so that the tool is not easy to stick to the knife.

In addition to smooth chip removal and no sticking to the tool, the advantages of DLC coated end mills are far more than that. DLC color coating can improve the wear resistance of the end mill, and the service life is increased by 2-3 times. It can achieve high efficiency processing, also suitable for wet cutting and dry cutting. If you are still using the normal solid carbide end mills without coating, come and try DLC coating end mills!

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