I’m running my LR3 per the speed parameters in from the Estlcam setup page. I’m wondering if it’s possible to run this thing faster? where is the speed bottleneck? The trim router(Makita 701)? The Stepper motors? If I put an actual CNC spindle on the LR3 can I run it faster then?
Significant speed gains over the initial defaults are possible, but each machine is different. The communicated default settings are conservative by design so that folks just getting started can be successful right out of the gate.
In general, machines will lose steps before hitting the limits of the spindle, but it is a balancing act. No stepper is going to be able to drag a non-running bit through wood, and depth of cut and chip load also factor in. It’s a fact of physics that stepper motor torque drops as velocity increases. Both excessive velocity and excessive acceleration can cause lost steps.
The Z axis will be the slowest due to additional friction from the leadscrews, but you can set Z acceleration and velocity parameters separate from X and Y.
Once you’re machine is running reliably (whatever that means to you), feel free to do your own increasing velocity and acceleration tests, ramp things up until you’re skipping steps, and then back off to give yourself a safety margin. It’s been my experience that starting by optimizing acceleration first (while holding to a steady “bullet proof” velocity), followed by using that identified acceleration to optimize max velocity results in the fewest number of iterations to get to best reasonable performance.
When there are to be several hours invested in a cut, I don’t mind a little extra time compared to worrying every second about whether I’m on the ragged edge of possible performance.
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I keep a notebook of my settings for my successes and failures.
6 Columns -
Bit
Material
Depth of Cut
Feed Rate
Router Speed
Notes
I can skim MDF at 50mm/s at .5mm doc using a 3/4 bit. If it was oak it would be more like 8mm/s. Aluminum I have no idea? And that’s just my machine like Tom says each machine is different.
We have all made a lot of firewood and sawdust trying to get the last oz of speed out of our machines.
Seen Ryan’s video?
MDF cutting speed in video seems slow at 22mm/s, until you realize DOC is 12.5mm, lowest router speed setting.
From comments…
Took me a while of being here to realize my focus should be pursuing Max Cutting Volume Speed of material (with acceptable quality).
I think it’s quite fast. 
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Agree, MMR score of 873 for MDF vs 1/8" bit seems fast to me as well.
Where 873.125 mm^3/s = 3.175 * 22 * 12.5