Milling under computer numeric control (CNC) is a common way to form objects of a pre-determined shape in a wide range of industries, including consumer electronics, home products and appliances, farming, construction equipment, transportation systems, automotive, and the like.
Dust and debris generated during a milling process can pose considerable challenges to the milling-process operator and other involved personnel, including being difficult to remove. This problem is particularly pronounced during the milling of foamed plastics including styrofoam and polyurethane. During the milling of such low density foam, the debris generated can cling to other objects, making it difficult to remove. Special machines having hollow cutters have been designed to efficiently remove milling debris. These special machines have a hollow spindle nose that is connected to vacuum on one end and the hollow cutter on the opposite end. During the milling process, the majority of the debris generated is sucked into the hollow cutter through the hollow spindle nose for removal.
While efficient, these special machines are relatively expensive, take up a good amount of space, and are not always available for a given milling facility. Instead, milling facilities are more commonly equipped with conventional milling machines that do not have the hollow spindle nose. Attempts have been made to retrofit the conventional spindle nose on milling machines. One such attempt provides a hollow cutter retrofit kit, shown in FIG. 1. The kit comprises a suction hood 12, a special adapter 14 for a hollow cutter 16, and a swivel nut 18. The suction hood 12 has a hollow arm 22 that is to be connected to a vacuum source. During operation, the adaptor 14 is fitted onto the hollow cutter 16 by the swivel nut 18 to form a modified cutter. When the suction hood and the modified cutter are fitted onto a machine spindle nose 20, the special adapter 14 fits into the suction hood 12 to provide vacuum to the hollow cutter 16.
This conventional retrofit kit has numerous shortcomings including, and not limited to, that it is designed to be used only with the certain type of hollow cutter shown, the cutter has to be modified with a special adaptor to be useful for the kit, and the suction hood is specific for a given machine and cutter such that a different hollow cutter demands an entirely new kit. Better utilizing existing conventional milling machine while having the capability to remove the debris during a milling process remains a challenge.