I currently have the 65mm VFD, and I’ve noticed that it crashes before the stepper motors. With the new 80mm spindle, will the stepper motors now be the limiting factor?
Thanks
—Mark
Hey there Mark, did you watch my comparison video? It might help to answer your question. I pushed that 80mm pretty hard and neither gave up during the test (stepper motors).
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Just watched it, that’s pretty neat! Would love to be able to push it past 200ipm to get the machines full capability.
Thank you!
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Your welcome! Yes I would love to push it past 200 ipm also. If only someone would shed some light on this from Carbide 3d?
Remember that the amount of material removed is what you’re looking for, and feedrate is just one part of that equation. This is called “Material Removal Rate” commonly abbreviated to MRR. If you want to remove material faster, go deeper with depth of cut, and/or go with more stepover. The only time I have really pushed past 200 IPM on the S4/S4Pro was cutting plastic and only needed a shallow depth of cut.
So The S5Pro already has a ton of capability, especially with the 80mm spindle…just use the other two factors, depth and width to make projects go faster.
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Thanks for the explanation on Material Removal Rate (MRR). My primary concern is achieving an optimal chipload, which often requires higher speeds and low RPMs, around 10,000 RPM. Balancing feed rate with ideal chip load is challenging, especially at lower spindle speeds.
The S5Pro’s 80mm spindle offers great capability, but my goal is to ensure efficient material removal while maintaining quality. To optimize my projects, I’ll consider using depth and stepover more strategically.
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What is the tooling and material? If you’re talking larger diameter tooling, or higher flute count, maybe reducing the diameter or flute count will get you to where you need to be.
Where I’m coming from:
I cut a lot of plastic on the S4Pro and HDM (it also sees a lot of aluminum) at work. Those are about as sensitive to chipload as any material can be. I have yet to really need more than 200 IPM. But I also don’t use larger than 3/8" tooling for anything other than facing operations, and they are not too sensitive to chipload since the DOC is usually not more than 0.020".
I did once run 400 IPM on my S4Pro in HDPE, but that was more me having fun rather than anything useful. The batch of parts ended up being ran around 275 IPM with a 1/4" single flute.
Steppers are my limitations with my 5 pro. I’ve been running a 2.2kw spindle the last year. On this machine and several years on a 3xxl.
I cut tigerply edge (baltic birch alternative) with a 1/4” compression bit at 275IPM and 24k rpm with a 0.5” doc every day.
Only reason I don’t cut faster that’s as fast as the machine moves.
Comparatively I had to do 1/4” doc and 180 ipm on my 3xxl.
I also have a 1” 2 straight flute bit that I use to hog out larger areas in line. 1/2” doc at 225 ipm. Only reason it’s not 275 is I start having some lifting due to work holding limitations. The machine will still do it. And the surface finish is still decent.
I primarily work with hardwood and am currently using a 3-flute 0.25" bit. Ill be moving down to a 2-flute bit once my current bits dull.
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In all honesty, I have not found any species of wood to be very sensitive to chip load. As long as you’re not going so slow as to have a lot of friction, thus burning of the wood, there is a pretty broad range of chiploads that work great. Hardwood species do seem to benefit from more room to clear chips, so you’re on the right track with the 2 flutes from my experience.
From my projects, the only materials that are truly sensitive to chip load are aluminum and plastics.
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Note that at 10kRPM your spindle will be limited to 10/24 of its potential power (and material removal rate).
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