April 15, 2023
Project Overview:
Manufacturing Process: CNC Machining
Material: Aluminum 6061-T6
Part Dimensions: 390.00 × 213.00 × 130.00 mm
Surface Finishing: Sanding, Threading, Anodizing Blue
Quantity and Lead Time: 1 Unit, 7 Days
Customer was an Australia company offering professional service and engineered solutions for fluid systems. This prototype was made to test liquid pressure and fitting before low volume production. Since big dimensions, shape stability and milling tolerance were key points.
CNC machining usually started from coarse milling by big cutting tools to fast remove unwanted material, to fine milling by gradually smaller tools. For 3 axis CNC milling, workpiece was rotated manually and repositioned accurately to mill the part side by side, tolerance around ± 0.1mm.
Fixtures and Jigs were usually applied to assit milling for high efficiency and tolerance. One deep hole was bored as it was out of milling capability. The CNC Machined Prototype prior to Surface Finishing. All cutting lines and burrs on milled surface were removed by sanding and beadblasting.
The Final Finishing of Aluminum Anodizing. The anodized film provided aesthetic feeling as well as corrosion & abrasion resistance to the part. Generally, 6061/6063 and 5052 were the common and preferred series of aluminum material to get the quality anodizing finishing.
One of the fast growing and wide applications of CNC machining today is Rapid Prototyping for its advantages of cheap and target materials, tight tolerance as well as usually cheap production cost, thus CNC milled prototypes deliver more reliable and economical feedback on mechanism and strength verification.
