Milling of cases. Milling technology. We currently offer
Our company provides services in the field of milling aluminum and non-ferrous metals to order of any complexity. We specialize in the manufacture of housings for electronic equipment, including sealed and waterproof IP69 (for remotely controlled uninhabited underwater vehicles).
Housings for radio-electronic equipment (REA) and instrumentation and automation (instrumentation and automation) are widely used in all industries and National economy. This is due to the fact that electrical and radio-electronic devices need protection from mechanical, physical and chemical influences for normal functioning. It should also be noted that aluminum cases for electronic equipment and instrumentation are very durable, so they effectively protect the equipment located in them from accidental damage. The durability of such cases is also high, since, properly treated, they are not subject to atmospheric or chemical corrosion. This allows the use of aluminum (aluminum alloy) housings in industry. The production of aluminum cases is an important segment of our company's activities. Absolutely any modern production cannot do without housings for electronic equipment or instrumentation and automation, made on the basis of aluminum and other non-ferrous metals.
EXAMPLES OF OUR MILLING WORK
Metal milling is a technology for producing various parts by cutting using a cutter - a special cutting tool.
Milling processing is carried out with high quality and within the specified time frame of the customer. The company has the latest special equipment that will allow you to perform any type of milling work. Your order will be fulfilled by highly qualified specialists, thanks to whose skill it is possible to produce the necessary metal blanks with minimal material costs for the customer. They will be able to process shaped, cylindrical, end, and conical surfaces.
Metal milling, performed on milling machines, allows the processing of horizontal, vertical and inclined surfaces, as well as shaped surfaces and grooves.
Milling work, which is a specialization of our company, includes a complex of technological processes for processing metal workpieces by cutting. Milling work is carried out to process the external and internal surfaces of parts with the ability to process horizontal, vertical and inclined surfaces on milling machines. Milling work is performed with a certain speed, feed and depth of cut, while the feed speed is limited by the heat resistance of the cutter material, and the choice of depth and feed depends on the strength of the cutting tool. Depending on the work performed, universal, horizontal, vertical, longitudinal, rotary, drum and other types of milling machines are used.
To the most effective methods metalworking, in addition to turning, includes milling. The milling method can be used to process unhardened steels, non-ferrous metals and alloys, although in some cases it is also possible to process hardened steels. A feature of milling performed using a multi-edged cutting tool (cutter) is the intermittency of cutting by each tooth of the tool. Milling involves cutting only on a certain part of the workpiece with which the cutter teeth come into contact.
When milling, the geometry of the workpiece directly depends on the shape of the tool, therefore, depending on the workpiece, different types cutters Climb milling is used to obtain clean surfaces, and up milling is used to increase productivity. Rough milling is performed using cutters with large insert pitches and involves a large depth of cut, while finishing reduces both the depth and the processing speed.
Milling using multi-blade metal-cutting tools is one of the most common metalworking technologies. Milling how technological process Metal cutting is carried out using cutters that allow horizontal, vertical and inclined milling of surfaces.
This technology is used for end, face, peripheral and shaped milling of parts. End milling is used for grooves, undercuts and grooves (including through grooves), face milling is used for machining large surfaces, and form milling is used for machining profiles (for example, gears). Milling, like turning, is performed at different speeds, feeds and depths of cut with the ability to change these parameters for specific parts.
Housings for electronic devices/microwaves, heat sinks/radiators for electronics, as a rule, contain small structural elements: threads for fastening printed circuit boards, holes for connectors, grooves for laying and fixing sealing gaskets, etc. Universal machining centers are often not able to quickly cope with milling small elements of electronic devices due to the low rotation speed of the cutting tool, so high-speed 3D CNC milling is optimal.
High-speed 3D CNC milling of aluminum is a modern, dynamically developing area of metal cutting. With this type of processing, classical formulas for calculating cutting forces do not work, because the speed of intermolecular rupture of metal differs significantly from the speed of metal separation during standard “power” milling.
During high-speed milling of aluminum, the importance of removing heat and chips from the cutting zone increases, so cooling is carried out using technical alcohol supplied to the cutting zone using compressed air. This provides additional advantages in the absence of the need to wash parts after milling - aluminum and copper housings for electronic devices / microwaves, heat sinks / radiators for electronics, come out literally shiny.
Also, one of the undeniable advantages of high-speed milling is the cleanliness of the processed surfaces. High-speed 3D CNC milling allows, without grinding, to obtain the required parameters of roughness and flatness of heat-removing surfaces of REA / microwave housings and heat sinks / radiators of radio-electronic devices.
High-speed milling requires the purchase of special, expensive carbide tools. Unfortunately, “standard” cutters are not suitable for this type of processing, and this significantly narrows the choice of cutting tools.
Another advantage over “standard” milling is that “drilling” holes for various diameters of blind or through threads can be done with one carbide cutter with high speed without the need to change cutting tools. This significantly reduces processing time and, as a result, becomes cheaper.
Mechanical threading in instrument housings for electronic devices/microwaves often leads to breakage of the taps inside the almost finished part. This increases the cost of parts for the Buyer, because The supplier has to include additional costs for technological stock into the cost of manufacturing the batch. Also negative factor metalworking thread cutting in aluminum, copper and plastic is low quality of the resulting threads: lack of perpendicularity to the main surface, “jamming” of the first turns of the cut threads due to the need to repeatedly screw in and turn out the taps.
High-speed 3D CNC milling of aluminum allows you to avoid this problem: thread milling is carried out with special carbide cutters moving along a spiral path.
Another serious problem in the manufacture of “species” housings of REA / microwave units is manual machining of chamfers, burrs and sharp edges, because manually very difficult to achieve High Quality processed surfaces of aluminum parts.
High-speed 3D CNC milling of aluminum, copper and plastic allows you to remove chamfers, burrs and sharp edges with high speed, accuracy and quality using special carbide countersinks. This type of milling processing significantly increases the consumer qualities of manufactured products and reduces the risk of specific parts becoming defective.
This raised a lot of questions and discussions in the comments, so we decided to continue this topic and focus on creating prototypes of housings and mechanisms for electronics, so that it would be easier for you to navigate the various materials and prototyping technologies that modern manufacturers offer.
As always, we will pay attention to the most topical issues and we'll give useful tips, based on our practice:
- What materials are prototype housings for electronic devices made from?
- Review modern technologies prototyping: what to choose? Here we will look at different 3D printers and compare them with CNC milling technology.
- How to choose a prototype manufacturer, what documents to provide to the contractor?
1. What is the prototype housing for electronic devices made of?
The optimal materials for the electronics housing are selected taking into account the design requirements, the purpose of the device (operating conditions), customer preferences and the price category of the development. Modern technologies allow the use of the following materials for the manufacture of prototypes:- Various types of plastic: ABS, PC, PA, PP, etc. For housings requiring increased impact resistance or resistance to aggressive environments, polyamides and polyformaldehydes (PA, POM) are used
- Metals: aluminum, various grades of stainless steel, aluminum-magnesium alloys, etc.
- Glass
- Rubber
- Wood (various species) and other exotic materials
When combined in one housing various types materials, it is important to get advice from specialists; they will help you correctly implement the joining points, provide the necessary parameters of tightness, strength, flexibility, i.e. will compare the wishes of the client and the device designer with real production capabilities.
2. Review of modern prototyping technologies: what to choose?
Housing prototypes can be created on equipment for serial production, but other technologies are used. For example, plastic is not molded, but milled or grown, since creating an injection mold is a time-consuming and expensive process.The most common prototyping technologies today are milling and growing (SLA, FDM, SLS).
Growing prototypes in 3D printers is especially popular, this fashion technology It is rapidly developing and even layered into mass production. Today, a wide variety of products are grown, including metal products and food products, but all this has its limitations. Let's look at these technologies in more detail, and at the end we'll try to choose best option to create a housing prototype:
SLA (Stereo Lithography Apparatus)- stereolithography technology allows you to “grow” a model in a liquid photopolymer, which hardens under the influence of an ultraviolet laser. Advantages: high accuracy and the ability to create large-sized models. The high-quality surface of SLA prototypes is easy to finalize (it can be sanded and painted). An important drawback of the technology is the fragility of the model; SLA prototypes are not suitable for screwing in self-tapping screws or testing cases with latches.
SLS (Selective Laser Sintering)- selective laser sintering technology allows you to create a prototype through layer-by-layer melting of the powder. Advantages: high accuracy and strength, ability to obtain samples from plastic and metals. SLS prototypes allow assembly testing of enclosures using hinges, latches and complex assemblies. Disadvantage: more complex surface treatment. 
FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling)- technology of layer-by-layer growing with polymer thread. Advantages: the resulting sample is as close as possible to the factory version of the device (up to 80% strength compared to plastic injection). The FDM prototype can be tested for functionality, assembly and climate control. Parts of such a case can be glued and ultrasonic welded; ABS+PC materials (ABS plastic + polycarbonate) can be used. Disadvantages: average surface quality, difficulties in final processing. 
As you can see, the limitations of various growing technologies do not allow us to accurately reproduce and convey the tactile characteristics of the case. Based on the prototype, it will not be possible to draw conclusions about the real appearance of the device without additional processing. Typically, growing can only use a limited number of materials, most often one to three types of plastic. The main advantage of these methods is their relative cheapness, but it is important to take into account that the additional processing that is required for high-quality appearance products, covers this advantage. Moreover, the quality of the prototype is also affected by the growing accuracy, which is not sufficient to create small-sized cases. And after processing and polishing the surface becomes even lower.
Wherein milling on numerically controlled machines(CNC) allows you to achieve manufacturing accuracy of one order of magnitude with precision mass production. In this case, you can use the absolute majority of materials that are used in the mass production of cases. The main disadvantage of milling is its high labor intensity and the need to use expensive equipment, which causes the high cost of this technology. Although these costs are quite comparable to growing the body, if you take into account the lengthy and expensive final surface treatment.
3. How to choose a prototype manufacturer, what documents to provide to the contractor?
When choosing a contractor for the production of prototypes, you should pay attention to the following features:- Finished prototypes must be fully functional, as close as possible to serial products, so that they can be used for certification, demonstration to investors, at exhibitions and presentations.
- The manufacturer must work with a wide range various materials and technologies, provide advice on their choice. This way you can choose the best option for your specific project.
- It is desirable that the contractor has a database of trusted manufacturers both in the CIS and in South-East Asia, so that you can get an estimate of the various options regarding the time and cost of manufacturing the various components of your device. This will make it easier to choose the best option.
We hope our tips will help you create your own
Modern high-precision milling equipment from DATRON (Germany) allows us to process materials such as aluminum, copper and their alloys, plastic and textolite.Manufacturing of electronic equipment housings
The enterprise has installed modern high-precision milling equipment from DATRON(Germany); YCM(Taiwan): allowing the processing of materials such as aluminum, copper, steel and their alloys, plastic and textolite.YCM also presented a turning and milling machining center YCM-GT-250MA.
The development of control programs for CNC machines is carried out using the Mastercam geometric modeling and software processing system for CNC machines.
We currently offer:
- Manufacturing of metal and plastic parts.
- Milling and engraving of front panels and housings of electronic equipment.
- Creation of foundry molds and models.
- Various types of engraving and markings.
- Various types of turning products.
Production capabilities:
- The accuracy of manufacturing metal parts is 1 micron.
- roughness class according to GOST 2789-59 - 10.
- The maximum size of the processed workpiece is 1000mm x 650mm x 250mm.
- The maximum depth of internal closed windows and grooves is 50mm.
- the maximum depth of threaded holes M2-4 is 12mm, M5-10 is 16mm (threaded holes can be not only metric, but also with any pitch).
- The minimum cutter diameter is 0.2mm.
- The maximum entry of the T-shaped cutter is 4.5 mm.
- cutting angle of cutter type " dovetail"5-15 gr.
IN as soon as possible It is possible to produce high-quality prototypes, as well as small-scale production.
Parts may have complex curved surfaces, a large number of technological transitions.
Input data for ordering and evaluation accepted in the form of a 3D model of any modern CAD or in IGS, STEP format. In cases where clarification of qualities, thread types, etc. is necessary. A drawing may be required.
X-RAY CONTROL SYSTEM
We use advanced technologies in the field of fluoroscopy. The resolution is 1.3Mp, this provides recognition down to 0.5µm, which makes the system almost unique.