Ok I’ve read the milling basics, and I get those settings are meant to be more conservative, but can someone throw out some recommendations for Ryan’s 1/8" single flute end mills that won’t take 19 passes to complete? lol Like, how can I go deeper, or get it done faster? I’m having to throw out everything I was taught about DOC because I was always told the DOC should be half of your bit’s diameter. Or maybe I completely misunderstood that when it was being said.
I also have a slew of 1/4" 2 flute upcut bits if those can be used. But I know that’s not the recommended way to use the LR2.
So some “Safe” yet “Faster than conservative” settings? More specifically, the DOC/X Y Speeds if that’s not too much to ask. Plunge, I’ll keep that under 8mm/s, no complaints there. I just don’t wanna spend 12 hours cutting out one side of an arcade cabinet IF I can do it faster, and still safely.
Thanks in advance, and sorry if this has been asked a million times. My search fu is weak these days 'cause I couldn’t find the same question asked.
I’ve been making cuts with both 1/8" single and 2 flute up cut bits, and 2 flute 1/4" inch up cuts. I’ve been making cuts about 5mm DOC with the 1/8" bits and about 6mm with the 1/4".
I think it’s a good idea to try deeper cuts rather than faster for 2 reasons; first because this uses more of the cutting edge of the bit, so rather than wearing out just 1mm at the tip of the bit, you spread out the wear over 5 or 6mm. Also, the steppers loose torque at higher speeds, so a faster but shallower cut may be more likely to loose steps, even if the load is lower.
Ryan is fond of pointing out that every build is different, so it’s probably a good idea to just experiment a bit and see what works for you.
I mostly use the 1/8" bits unless I’m doing something that has a bunch of pocketing, where the wider bit is just a bunch faster. If I’m just making through cuts, I don’t see a point in turning more of my material to saw dust than necessary. Also, most of the through cuts I’ve been doing involve slot and tab type assemblies, and dog bones made with an 1/8" bit are barely noticeable.
Alot of my cuts do have the dog bone pockets for dados, however they’re generally pretty shallow.
Thank you for taking the time to respond, and for being so thorough in your explaination. I’ll give your settings a whirl in a scrap piece of 3/4 in the morning. I’m thinking of using the 1/4" for the dado pockets for removing more material quicker, and switching to the 1/8" for through cuts as you said. That’s something that makes alot of sense to me.
Yeah, deeper is better. 1/4" needs to move slower, so for a cutout, it will be slower. If you have any huge pockets, they will definitely slow you down. For example, if you were trying to do letters on a circle out of 1/2" material, it is way faster to cut out letters and the circle from 1/4" and glue then together.
Small dadoes shouldn’t be that big of a deal though.
Breaking the job up is also going to be helpful. Test some. It would suck to skip a step after cutting for hours.
Pete’s advice is good… I use a 1/8" single flute upcut with similar settings … a little deeper (6.5mm) and a little slower but I haven’t pushed it to the limit yet. I’d recommend a second full depth finishing pass after your rough cut.
I built a full size arcade cabinet by hand and it was part of my reason for wanting a low rider… so many angles and weird cuts made simple. Post a picture when you’re done if you can…
Definitely will! Cutting a Dragon’s Lair cab once I get my vacuum hose extension in, probably Monday I believe amazon estimates it to be. I have to replace a cab that got water damaged in storage, sucks 'cause it was all original, but once I’m done no one that is going to notice it’s repro haha
Do you do alot of arcade stuff?
When you say ‘slower’ what speed are you running the rest of your machine, with the 6.5mm DOC?
The Dadoes are only like .15" deep, and they’re basically for 3/4" square blocking to fit in. More for reference than anything. But I like to glue them in, and shoot some 1/4" Crowns in them for good measure and peace of mind.
I should note, that I haven’t been working with MDF much. Mostly, cheap home center pine plywood, and a little with really nice (and expensive) baltic birch.
I didn’t note feed rates above, but I’ve been sticking pretty close to Ryan’s recommendations there. Mostly doing ~8-9mm/s feed with both the 1/8" and 1/4" bits.
As Greg notes even deeper may be possible, but there are considerations. MDF should be pretty flat, but the cheap pine plywood is definitely not. I’ve had some pieces that were easily 1/4" off the spoil board in places and I was unable to pull it flat with screws (they just pulled out of my spoil board). As a result I’m sure I was cutting 10mm or more deep on the first pass in those areas. I’ve been leery of trying to go even deeper with that issue factored in.
I think most people zero off the top surface of the material, and that works fine with flat material, but for through cuts, I’ve found I really like to zero off the spoil board. I set the bottom of the material as Z=0 in my CAM software as well. This ensures cutting all the way through the material, while barely scratching the spoil board, and works well consistently even with warped material. With warped plywood, zeroing off the top surface might result in not cutting all the way though in some places, or cutting pretty deep into the spoil board.
Wow, never thought about that. That’s actually pretty genius. Zero’ing out at the spoil board, guarantees you’ll hit your depth, and not do as much damage to your spoil board, that’s a cool concept! I’ve always programmed everything from the top… Interesting indeed…
I’ll plug in a 6mm DOC with 9mm/s tool on test cut and see how my machine likes it.
I have an old Pinbot pinball machine I restored, and I made a MAME cabinet from scratch. I’ll attach a pic if I can find one. I have all the pieces to make some more cabinets once I get my low rider all tuned up… I was thinking maybe some bartop machines.
Probably 2/3 your speed… still kinda dialing in my settings I’m not sure how much faster than that I can go before I start having problems.
Yea ya know, I think I’ll start slow, and with each run, I’ll start with one of the smaller parts, I’ll slowly increase until it starts to be too much then I’ll back off to ‘last known good speed’. For now, I’m gonna stick to 8mm/s - 9mm/s because that is close to Ryan’s recommendations too, but kick the DOC up a bit as per yours and Pete’s settings.
I LOVE your MAME cab. Have you thought about those 60-in-1 boards and the 741-in-1 jamma boards? Takes out the need for a computer, and run on it’s own dedicated hardware. From power on, to menu in like 10 seconds, and if you ever wanted to build a ‘dedicated’ machine, they can be configured to only boot up a specific game. When my dad’s 40 year old boardset finally failed beyond repair, I loaded his cab with the 60-in-1 and it boots right into ms pacman. You can’t look at it and tell it’s not a ms pac board.
I have a few bartop plans I’ve made, some I’ve downloaded, but my MAIN goal here, with my LR2, is to replace my Dragon’s Lair cab that got damaged. And whilie I’m at it I’ll finally get to cut my Space Ace cab, since I have all the hardware (I could convert my Dragon’s Lair to a Space Ace with ease back in the day) And I truly want those 2 sitting side by side in my man cave. haha Beyond that, I wanna build some aussie lowboys so bad. Those things just look sleek as hell, and we never had them here.
Most areas have woodworking stores where you can get special sheet goods. I search for “lumber” or “hardwood” in google maps to find the ones I frequent. Be prepared to pay more for it though.
I wonder if 84 could get it. I’ll give 'em a call. There is this mom and pop shop around the corner from my shop that are known to order the stuff that HD and Lowe’s doesn’t carry, but you’re right… Pricey!
That is awesome! I hadn’t seen that style until today. I kinda want one now.
I have seen the Jamma boards but I’m reluctant to go the route of maintaining a tube screen even though I do like the scan lines and realism. My current cabinet has an xbox and PC in it and does double duty. Definitely going to re-evaluate if I do another one though since dealing with a PC is also a pain.
You may have an independent lumber yard where the contractors go when they make kitchen counters, etc. I wound up getting a bunch of melamine samples and just ordered what I wanted when I laminated the sides. Super durable. Same place here can also order in the ultralight MDF. Price was really reasonable like not much more than regular MDF but I’m guessing that varies town to town. It is in metric so the 1/2" is actually 12mm etc. I used regular MDF on my cabinet and I’m hoping never to move it again
HAHA! They do get heavy. But then again, my Original Dragon’s Lair was made of of Ply, and MDF. I think the sides, front, bottom and top were all Ply, and the innards were MDF. It was a beast to move. I have an original Ms Pacman cab too, that’s 100% ply and it’s heavy as hell. I hate moving that thing.
With the 60-in-1 and other multi boards, they have multiple outputs. Can use arcade monitors, or they also have a VGA output. I’ll get you a pic of one I have laying around if I can locate it.
Oh wow I thought they all used tube screens didn’t know about the VGA output. That would be perfect in a bartop machine. I like the idea of building to a standard JAMMA interface so you can just plug and play too. Looks like there are lots more and cheaper options these days… even a bunch of stuff on ali express.
There are the vertical versions, and the horizontal versions too! The horizontal ones usually have the better games for bartops and 6 button control panel configurations. Street fighter, Mortal Kombat, TMNT etc. Things have come a long way!
Been doing lots of googling… might go with a raspberry pi running retropi and one of these hats connected to a JAMMA harness since I don’t need the analog video. The PC was nice so I could hook up a trackball and lightguns and paddle and have the buttons light up that applied to each game but it was a lot of work.
@jeffeb3, there’s never been an easier time to make one and you have the machine to do it!
