Aluminum Probing square 5mm DOC

So… my first venture into rest machining and it’s pretty awesome. My hose for air blast is held up by COVID so I cut it without any air… seemed to get hot and dull hogging out all that material with 5mm DOC even after I changed from the default loading of 1/2 the bit diameter to 1mm… if I were to do it again I would maybe change to 0.5mm if I still don’t have air blast. First pass the bit got dull, second pass with a fresh bit finished it up but for some reason I was left with an extra 0.2mm of material compare to my model so I had to make another cut with the model shrunk the extra 0.2mm not sure where it came from or why? I probed the corner so should be spot on. Also had some problem with the first cut being too deep… guessing maybe the router moved down somehow while hogging after the probe.

Probing the corner and having the vise completely parallel turned out to be essential… I could take the part out, inspect it, shut the machine down, come back and do another pass on it the next day.

I can throw this on a piece of wood to find the corner should make it possible to shut down between tool changes.

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Now I want to pull up part of my spoil board and get a clamp…

I guess this is a non-issue but does anyone have trouble making electrical contact with aluminum? Am I just paranoid?

I use aluminum tape the same way and almost never have any trouble. As a matter of fact I dont have to use the wire to the mill if my 660 is plugged into the same outlet as the powers supply for the steppers. But if it’s a coated mill or coated with pinch or other dirt it won’t no matter what so test it before you start or Zaxis test will cause all kinds of trouble. Parts break legs lift or slide and things are not tramed

My normal touch block is a scrap of aluminum with a wire screwed into it. No problems so far (unless I forget to attach the wire to the mill).
On my aluminum test cuts, I’ve even been holding my (recently purchased) V1 tiny touch plate to the stock by hand and touching off the stock with no issue.

Are you saying on the 660 the mill is connected to ground?
I’ve been clipping an alligator clip on this whole time!

Yeah, that’s super interesting. Twice I forgot my wire to the mill. Once the stepper just skipped (mpcnc) once it just kept going and borked my aluminum couplers (lowrider).

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On mine it is test it I’ll post a vid later if I can start a probe and touch your mill with the block

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Yes iv done that to coated mill or pitch or sap can interfere also what outlet I use makes a difference