I am just getting started cutting some 2d projects. I just finished cutting out a door panel for an old camper van I am restoring. I have been using the default conservative settings in estlcam for speeds and depths. Right now I’m using a standard 1/8 inch bit with a DeWalt 611. I’m cutting through 5mm plywood. At the conservative speed, it took about an hour and half to do it. What would you guys think would be a good speed and depth increase to speed up my jobs without breaking my bits, etc?
What speed and DOC do you have in the CAM? Sounds like you should be able to increase speeds without losing accuracy.
The milling basics are just a conservative starting point. Make some tests with different depths and speeds and try them out. Every machine is different.
You probably won’t break bits. The machine will probably skip steps before breaking anything. So go ahead and push it.
Right now I’m just using the starting point that was referenced in the docs. 1mm depth and 15mm/sec on the xy.
If you test 3mm DOC, you’ll shorten the time to one third of the initial cut. If you make a test cut like Jeff suggests, you’ll know how it goes!
Sounds good. Seems like it’s more of a trial and error for each machine with all the variables involved, from what I have been gathering. Thanks for the info!
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I run my lowrider at 10mm/s at 10mm doc as my standard speed with a 1/8 bit. There is an aggressive finishing cut of .5 mm at full depth doc which cleans up a lot of errors. I’ve also cranked up the current to 1.2 amps.
It doesn’t skip steps at that speed but there is some blade deflection which is mostly cleaned up by the finishing pass.
It’s not perfect but it sure beats the jigsaw.
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