I recently started working with Rhino and have imported an stl file of a simple radius dish measuring 2’ x 2’. When I generate the toolpaths using a 1/4" ball nose, the roughing pass calculates at 93 minutes and the smoothing at 237 minutes.
Does this seem right? I’m also not sure if my .25 bit is set up correctly. I searched for a ‘feeds and speeds’ cheat sheet but the link returned a ‘404’.
To date, I’ve been running jobs through Vectric and have been successful going w/ default settings when generating gcode. However, I’d like to get my head around MeshCam as I’ve read it’s a good pair w/ Rhino.
Any help is appreciated. I’ve attached the STL - if anyone can use a 15’ radius dish, feel free.
I use MeshCAM - but size wise I haven’t tackled something that large before.
There are a bunch of variables that you can change to speed up or slow down the whole process - so it would be impossible to tell you that it should be X mins to rough and Y to finish. I have to change things for different woods, different bits, and different finish requirements.
I loaded up your STL, and ran the numbers using a 6mm bit with speeds that I’ve used before and it quoted me about 200 mins to rough and 250 mins to finish.
So as a rough estimate you are in the ballpark.
One tip I’d offer - if you are only after the dish, don’t surface (or rough away) the rest of the stock. Only machine what you want in the end - otherwise you are just wearing out your bits, your equipment, and wasting time.
There are some good tutorials on how to use MeshCAM - if you are new-ish, I’d recommend you visit:
Hi Graham -
Thanks for the tips and resources.
It definitely makes sense to machine the dish only…
Would you mind sharing a screenshot of your bit settings for the 6mm ball-nose. I think if I get those dialled in, at least I’ll know everything is optimized to run as quickly as possible.
