Feeds and Speeds Spreadsheet

CNC Machines Shapeoko
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I know topics on feeds and speeds come up a lot so here is another one…

Is there a feeds and speeds community spreadsheet in the cloud somewhere? I know we have the wiki that has some and I have used the cool calculators within @Julien 's ebook. However, I don’t really get why there isn’t just some “master” list where people can put there speeds and feeds into if they so wish. Of course there are a lot of variables but I think there could be a good central starting point to base everything off of and adjust as needed to save yourself time.

Does this not exist or am I just missing it? I would be happy to start one up as a google drive or a similar platform. My first thought would be it could be broken up under tabs by material (i.e aluminum, acrylic, wood <1000 harness, 1001-2000, 2001-3000 and >3000, etc.) or something like that. It would then have bit used/bit info and then all associated variable the user inputted for their cut. Unsure if anyone would use it or not or if it has been tried and failed. What is the overall community consensus here?

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The feeds and speeds in Carbide Create can be duplicated to be .csv files — they’re quite conservative, but a great starting point.

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That’s basically what got me into this rabbit hole. I came to realize that it’s very difficult to produce and maintain such a universal feeds and speeds recipes database, for the following reasons:

  • variety of setups. Even when there was a single Shapeoko model, no two Shapeokos behaved exactly the same, what with the mods people had, how well they had tuned their machine, etc…So feeds and speeds (and DOC) that work great for someone, may not automatically work for someone else
  • every parameter matters. We tried in the past to come up with a mini-template for folks to report the feeds and speeds they use for a project they showcase, but it’s near impossible to stick to it. So quite often people will mention some of their cutting parameters, but not all of them, making the recipe harder to extrapolate (e.g. to a different endmill)
  • toolpaths matter. A depth of cut + width of cut for a 3D adaptive clearing toolpath can be way different from the regular pocket toolpath.

And then of course there was my desire to understand the physics behind the values, but that’s optional.

@gmack’s spreadsheet comes close. Beyond the main spreadsheet, there are tabs where he gathered cutting parameters from various people, and there is a list of material K-factor (for wood, this relates to hardness)

There’s also @WillAdams pretty nice tableau.

In my opinion, the closest we have to a universal recipe database is Winston’s list of MaterialMonday videos. They have F&S for various endmills AND type of toolpaths, and a large variety of materials.

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Thanks for this detailed explanation. I figured it was something along those lines. Completely makes sense especially the point with how different toolpaths end up affecting it as well. Just way too many variables seems to be the overall answer here.

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To be honest - as a novice - I stick with the ‘default’ S&Fs in the CC tool database - unless the cut is longer than I’m prepared to sit in my shed for, and then I’ll try to tweak it a bit or split the toolpaths intto two or three separate entities.

FWIW, other software providers provide ‘generic’ numbers for exactly the reasons @Julien and @WillAdams mentioned above - the number of variables - but at least the database identifies the specific Carbide 3D tool.

@gmacks spreadsheet is pretty good, but just looking at it will give you an idea of the known variables, but there are a few unknown, unknowns too, as pointed out by @Julien :thinking:

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