Aluminum Milling/Drilling - Recommended Build

I’ve been taking a look at the mpcnc and I’m considering building one myself. I plan to use the mpcnc for tinkering around with other stuff as well like the laser engraving, drag knife, wood routing, etc.

But, I was wondering what the recommended build settings were for making a mpcnc that can drill/cut aluminum. My first reason for building it is so that I can drill/cut a piece of aluminum that is 70x80x50mm and drill evenly spaced holes in it (see picture). This is for a fixture bed for another machine I want to make that’ll help with PCB prototyping (Twinteeth from diyouware).

Here are the steps they listed for milling and drilling that part of aluminum. What mpcnc spec would I need to be able to accomplish this type of milling and drilling? Thanks.

Milling and drilling the Fixture Bed If you bought the fixture bed at our shop or ordered it to some company or professional just go to the next section: Preparing the Fixture Bed.

To mill and drill the fixture bed you will need a CNC machine or a CNC milling machine. You can also do it with a non CNC mill but you should have experience and skills to manage it with precision.

First you need to cut two pieces of 70x80x5mm alu. sheet: one for the fixture bed and another for the stencil. You can use any type of aluminium, preferably soft aluminiun of 2000 series or similar.

Cut also a piece of 20mm OD x 10.5mm L x 2mm wall thickness of alu. round tube.

Mill on the back side of the bed a ring of 20mm OD x 2mm wide x 0.2mm deep to hold the alu. tube.

Drill and tread a M3 hole just in the middle of the bed on the back side. Just 0.3 depth, don’t pass through the sheet to the other side.

Drill the 56 holes of the 10mmx10mm matrix. The holes are 2.5 ID and IMPORTANT: they must not pass through the sheet, just drill 4.2mm of depth. This is because if you drill all the sheet thickness the pins will slip down out of the bed.

Finally drill the stencil. The holes must match exactly the bed holes position. These holes are also of 2.5mm ID but in this case they pass through the 5mm of the sheet to the other side.

To drill the holes try use a 2.40-2.45mm drill because the holes always are bigger than the drill bit.

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