Hi I am curious what everyone would prioritize when upgrading a stock Lead 1010 with Dewalt Router to be more capable with Aluminum, or is it just not worth the effort. I have cut some AL with my Lead and it did decent just slow. What would you start with to make it an aluminum beast or the best it can possibly do? Spindle? Linear Guide Rails instead of belt drive? coolant setup? ??? What do you guys think or what have you done and who has been successful? Thanks!
High Z Mod, the extra rail really increases rigidity. Just mount it differently (lower and stronger instead of for high clearance)
If it were me: 1) high-Z 2) linear rails 3) spindle 4) ballscrews Probably in that order. First you reduce flex in the frame, then you reduce flex in the motion constraints, then you reduce runout in the spindle, then you reduce lash in the drive. In order of price is probably rails, high-Z, screws, spindle. But you're not gonna get very far with any of it without fixing the frame, which is why high-Z would have to come first.
Thank you very much that is actually pretty helpful. Have you done anything similar if so how did you deal with the aluminum chips and did you set up mist coolant trying to figure out a way to capture that without destroying spoil board. Thanks
I have mist coolant on my mill, though it seems to have a blockage and right now it's just an air blast, though running aluminum dry that way is also fine- you just want to evacuate heat and avoid recutting chips. I honestly never had an issue with it "collecting", the bigger issue was the huge cloud of WD-40 that would build around the machine (highly flammable too, as are many typical aluminum coolants). Mist collection is definitely the bigger issue than runoff (as long as you have the dials set right). Remember the spoilboard isn't- or shouldn't be, if it's built right- a fundamental part of the machine. It can help keep things square and damp them a bit, but it's not framing. You can remove it and run bare frame (prepare to shopvac your slots to death, but it'd allow easy chip collection inside your bench below the machine), throw some 1/8" sheet in there in place of/as a spoilboard (program a manual drill cycle with no X-Y moves, clamp it in place, and locate manually before hitting cycle start each time, to give it handy screw holes), make a machine vise pallet (Z-travel depending) for smaller stuff, use roof flashing as a gluable protective sheet (it's probably pretty consistently rolled)... I dunno, this is just off the top of my head, the possibilities are endless. Machines are there to be modified and reconfigured to use-case, they don't need to be kept factory-spec!
Use IPA for cooling. Do a google search using IPA for cutting AL. Its clean and evaporates quickly and does not leave a mess.
