Drilling Holes - Gantry Shift

I have a two part question:

I have noticed in cc the ‘drill’ function.

Is this used to simply drill holes of a specific diameter to a specific depth, or is it being used more like a drill press?

Has anyone with an S5 used the gantry shift as a means to be a drill press?
Thanks for your time

The Drill toolpath allows drilling to a specified depth, making a hole which matches the diameter of the tool which you are using.

Using it on stock clamped to the front of the machine will work, but will require a way to clamp things at the front of the machine such as:

That said, if you need a drill press, get a drill press. It’s not a terribly large tool, and worst case is you bolt it to a wall or set it in a corner.

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When drilling with a CNC unless you have a spindle that can do lower revolutions than a router it is problematic. Most drills need to be run at lower speeds than a router can do. They do make cnc drill bits that can handle the higher rpm of a router but at a cost. If you have a spindle you can get the speed down but running a router the minimum speeds are too high for drilling holes in metal.

With a router you are limited in drill size by your collet sizes. On the spindles with a collet you are only limited by the collet sizes you can get. A spindle has a different collet from a router and you can buy SAE and metric collets in various sizes to match your collet type.

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To expand on that, note that there are a couple of possibilities here, and a couple of principles to consider.

The principles:

  • an endmill is four times better at cutting to the side than cutting when moving straight down — hence the benefit of ramping into a cut and adaptive cutting
  • a drill is four (or more) times better at cutting down than it is at moving side-to-side — usually any sideways deviation is undesirable — the flutes are there only to clear chips
  • there are specialty drill/mill tools

The possibilities:

  • using a “Drill” toolpath with a “normal” endmill — this requires matching feeds and speeds to what an endmill can do in terms of plunging straight down and may also require backing out to clear chips — note that doing this with a ball-nosed endmill may work a bit better and might be worth trying because the perimeter of the cut engagement is shorter
  • using a “Drill” toolpath with a specialized drill/mill — this should work better — check w/ the manufacturer of too tool for guidelines, but remember that the guidelines are for heavy, industrial mills/routers and it will be necessary to adjust accordingly
  • using a “Drill” toolpath with a “real” drill — note that drills are rated for the RPM ranges at which they may be safely turned — this range is much lower than that at which a trim router or typical spindle can turn with the torque to power through a cut — in addition to requiring a motor/gearing which will turn the tool with the necessary force to make a cut w/o overheating the tool, this will require collets which match the shank diameter

Never use any tooling at an RPM which it is not rated to be spun at.

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