ADI tools rated for 400 inches a minute?

[bvason]

I had Gran quartz pitch me today on 400" a minute tools by ADI for my CNC. Has anyone seen these in action or better yet does anyone own them yet? I know nothing about them and I'm skeptical but he did say we could easily do 200" a minute without any upgrades to the machine. Northwood 138 by the way. I would appreciate any input or even hearsay from anyone.

[wkluender]

Someone posted a video on Facebook of supposedly running at 400 ipm and I believe there's a few other guys here doing it also, but I'm fairly confident that will only be possible with a tool setter like a Zoller or Zares. You need to be removing the absolute minimum amount of material necessary reach speeds like that. Hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong though.

[Mark Smith]

Nicolai and diamut are running 500ipm, with a stringent re-true (edm) schedule, manual dressing stick every 500ft and wheel print every manual dressing.

[Darryl Miller]

Marmo EHS tools are rated for 400 ipm. We have been running them for a few years with great results. No tool setter either. We are running the metals at 250 to 350 ipm. Long life and at a great price.

[ZOrean96]

I started with the marmos about two years ago and the speeds were crazy, I didn't care for the shape of the tr3 so we switched back to diamut and slowly started bumping our regular diamut metals to the same speeds we had our marmos at. We have ran for over a year at this pace and wouldn't change it back. We invested in the advantedge shortly after bumping the speeds up and just got our zoller three weeks ago so its doable if you got a good tooling guy. We have two routers, run primarily pencil and eased jobs ( sometimes og, halfbull, fullbull) and push over 300 sqf per machine in a 10.5 hr shift with myself and two guys. My 40mm eased is ADI and they ROCK. I run them up to 150''/min between 1, 2, 3, and let 4 and 5 do there jobs. I have had them for over a year on each machine. Diamut and ADI have stood the test of time with the speeds we run, either brand will get you where you wanna be. I will note after 300 ipm the finish almost gets a vertical like chatter from zooming through so fast but if you allow your 4, 5 metals to run at or a little above spec the end finish is indistinguishable basic 100''/min feeds. PM if you got any questions

[kristech]

Everyone has their opinion of what tools are best and that’s fine. I would like to say a little about the EHS tools from Marmoelettromeccanica as I am their agent in Canada and I would like to clear up some points about the tools. I sold my first set of EHS tools to a diehard ADI customer over 4 years ago. He is now running 3 CNC machines with EHS tools but let me explain why. He no longer has to have extra sets of tools to send away to be machined and then spend a lot of time setting them up when they come back.
The EHS set (say T30) starts with a Razorstone pre cutter which runs at 200IPM (normally my customers leave 1/8” excess) the next 3 positions are Copper based diamond tools running at 300IPM (for T30) you run them until the copper is wearing through. You do not send them away EVER to be machined. The last 3 polishers are rubber and run at 100IPM (however there are some new developments and hopefully next year they will all be metal).
Next point is the tools are all Z calibrated, this means for the tool length on your machine the whole set is set at the same number. So normally we measure tool pos 3 and if the length is 68mm (2.68”) the whole set is and when you replace one of those tools with a new one the length is the same. You just enter the diameter on the label of the new tool, no need to waste a lot of time and big money on fancy measuring tools (all my customers are just using digital calipers and their old measuring jigs are collecting dust).
Most of my customers are using the Z tools (max 400 IPM) for seams and wall scribes, Razorstone and pos 1 for walls and Razorstone to pos 3 for seams and they love it. I had a customer say “I was told I should try a set of EHS” and in turn he told someone else and they also told someone else and they are all still running EHS. In the end it is up to you what you like, my customers like simple, fast and saving money. I leave it to them to decide how fast or how hard they want to run, as long as they are happy.
Last week a new customer called me and said “I just installed this set, these tools are awesome! I love the finish!” and that made me happy.

God bless and take care.

[gssfabrication]

Hi Barr,

You certainly can run the ADI tools at 400 in/min just keep in mind that not all the tools in a profile are designed and rated for those speeds. Look at the recommended feed/speed tables and it will tell you roughly what ratio ranges they should be running at.

As others have stated, if you are going to run them at Ferarri/Lamborghini aka racetrack speeds the tools need to be taking off the minimum amount of material and dressing/aligning them is key to keeping them creating a great profile over the life of the tool.

The question you want to ask and what most people will not admit is what happens when they start to get out of alignment and your profile starts looking less than stellar? A great tool person and/or a highly accurate alignment machine will help bring them back to what you want the profile to look like. Does your shop need to run 400 in/min? (what most marketing/sales people do not tell you is that is the peak speed of a few tools in a profile) [See the recommended feed/speed table from the tool manufacturer]

As your speed goes up, the water flow becomes increasingly important, likewise the less material you are taking off (bare minimum to get each tool in the profile to take the lines away from the previous profile) the larger the buffer you have for adequate water flow.

Each vendor has their approach to tooling and these days from the feedback I read about; it is probably hard to get a bad set of CNC tooling because of how much they have evolved over the years. The most important part is finding a set you like and making use of them in your fabrication process to ultimately drive your business to more success, however you decide to measure it.

Rick Graff.