rolang egx 600

[Rodney Pierce]

hey guys, does anyone here have any experience with the roland egx line of rotary engravers? I have been trying to figure out how to use the end mills, and whatnot and cant seem to get the speeds or feed rate correct. Im using a soft plastic to try and cut out of, and it keeps breaking the bits off. I have 1/32 and 1/64 bits, so they are very small. Any help would be awesome! Trying to cut out some pretty intricate things, and its impossible to do with the profile cutters. I did check out the www dot2linc.com site and they have a bunch of nice tools there. Anyhow, any help at all us much appreciated.

[Rodne Gold]

The problem with soft stuff is that it clogs cutters.
Try some form of coolant or lube like Diatsol or other water soluable cutting fluids
Another problem with conventional cutters is lack of back clearance to remove swarf , if you could grind these as parallel single flute cutters you can make em with a lot more back clearance
Cutter flex is a major problem with super thin cutters , use a cutter with an extremely short cutting edge and thick shank and clamp em as close to the cutting bit as possible , short with minimal protrusion
Soft materials need super sharp cutters that keep an edge HSS or Tungsten carbide.
There is actually NO sideways force a cutter should exert , in essence its the cutting edge clearing material and the cutter advancing for the next swipe - so if the above doesnt help , try reducing your feed rate or increasing spindle speed.

[Rodney Pierce]

Rodney, I was hoping you would respond! The machine uses 11/64 by 6.5 long top load cutters. But I also have a bottom load collet for it that I use 1/8 inch end mill bits in. If I could use a standard parallel cutter that was ground smaller then .050 and have it hold up that would work awesome. Where can I get bits ground at? Also cutting/cooling fluid isnt an option. And with the end mill bits should I be setting the depth at the thickness of the material, or taking multiple passes? I commonly use 1/16th and 1/32 material. The 1/16 is what is giving me problems. Im cutting all the way through.

[Jon Colley]

It has been several years since I worked with these units, but it sounds like the plastic may be melting and plugging the cutter. Check a broken one to verfiy this. If it is, then decrease your spindle speed a little.

[Rodne Gold]

If you are doing engraving , an inestment in a small cutter grinder with a diamond wheel is a good one. I use a gravograph machine which is not ideal , but it works. Its not good for making parallel cutters or for 1/2ing so I would look for another make.
You can then grind yours out of 1/8 carbide/HSSrod but going down to less than 1mm (0.04") cutters might be problematic. What I might do in your case is rather grind a V cutter with a very small included angle and cut with a slight bevel which is not very noticeable on thin stock. This can easily be sharpened and will be far less prone to breakage.
The rule of thumb is you can take 1/2 the diameter of the cutter away in a single pass , so a 1/32" cutter should be running at 1/64th , but you can get away with soft stuff at a depth = to cutter diameter - you need to do 2 passes with 1/16 if you running a 1/32 cutter.
What is your exact application here? What type of plastic is it? How are you holding it down?

[Rodney Pierce]

Rodney, it is gravotech 1/16th inch brushed foil on top of black core. We are holding it to the table with the gravotech sticky matte. Its a fairly large piece. I can upload an image of it here. Im trying to cut it out to stick onto a jade laminate background (so the jade show's through the cut outs).
http://i344.photobucket.com/albums/p347/rodcpierce/treeimage.jpg

[Rodne Gold]

That looks like a nightmare to cut with a small router bit - however I would rather use a V shaped cutter on it , BUT would cut it from the backside so you get a nice wide gold part - if you cut it from the front you will get the gold "eaten" away by the increasing width of cut.

[Rodney Pierce]

Do you think the bit would cut through the adhesive and backing paper OK without lifting it or tearing it up? It gets stuck to a jade backer piece. I ended up having the company order 1/32 instead of 1/16 so that I could cut it with a .010 v cutter and still have some of the silver brushed finish left. Ended up outlining/in-lining the piece .040 so that I would have enough brushed foil left after the cutting. I did a test piece and it turned out, will find out early next week if the final piece turns out. Lets hope so!! Ill be on here a BUNCH more asking for help im sure, as Roland's customer service/support on there engravers is literally non existent. I get much more help here!!!

[Rodne Gold]

Well, cutting thru a self adhesive layer , IE in terms of applying a self adhesive sheet to the material , cutting it and peeling off to stick , is not a good option anyway you do it , the ahesive will clog up cutters big time , as to cutting thru the front protective plastic , that is not an issue.
The plastic exhibtis tearing , but the underlying gold romark has great edges.
If you are using 1/32 (the flexibrass I assume) it wont matter much about the reverse bevel if you cut from behind as the material is so thin. Try using the finest long toploading V cutter you have , whilst doing the offset correction till you get good results.
Roland actually has quite good support , there are tons of downloads for their engravers , drivers , updates , manuals , quick starts , tutorial vids, how to make money engraving etc at
http://www.rolanddga.com/
In their support section

They also have a forum for their engraving machines where you can get tech advice , I think you need to register for that.

[Rodney Pierce]

Rodney, I am registered there, and they have been literally no help at all. I have called roland on numerous occasions, and the only answer there tech could give me was a simple "well, it shouldnt be doing that" but they couldnt help me with what to do to fix it nor with what settings, etc to try and use. Ive had the question posted there since tuesday, and got not a single answer back from there tech. I posted here and had an answer from you, yourself in only a few hours. Ill stick around here :) much more helpful!

[Rodney Pierce]

also, im cutting in gravograph matte brushed silver with black core. 1/32 inch. Im cutting through the top with the .010 v cutter, down through to the adhesive sheet. It works great! Ive got the offset corrected untill I got the silver to remain on the detail. It was the 1/16 I was having a bear of a time with. Ill try your method from the back side on the 1/16 with the v cutter, and see how it turns out on a test piece. BUT, how should I affix the piece to the backer on final assembly? (not to the table itself, but to the jade laminate backer). I need some sort of adhesive on the gravotach itself.

[Rodne Gold]

I havent been to the forums there for ages , they were always quite slow , thought you might find a similar or related thread there...
I would put a few dots of superglue to adhere the cutouts , just test first cos some of em leave a sort of white deposit from their vapour.
PS the trick with superglue to work quick is breath on both surfaces cos it reacts with moisture.