I’m sorry to bring this issue up because I know it’s been talked about many times, but I have a specific question or 2. I’m getting my Nomad 3 any minute and was wondering how to set F & S for my first cut. If you were me would you just go with what CC suggests using very simple cuts to get a feel for how it goes then up those speeds maybe 10 per cent & see how that goes to get a feel for it? If there was 1 parameter to raise first what might that be or can I just raise them all say 10 per cent?
Lastly is there a good reference for dummies, ie charts, etc to start with with the Nomad 3. I’ve seen HSM and G Wizard and read a lot of interesting reviews good & bad and in the end they seem to say “you just have to use your judgement.” Well I thought that was the purpose of the software, to make it so that you don’t have to use trial and error. Afterall, if I’m going to have to do that I might as well save the cost and do it the way I mentioned. Any lessons learned from experience would be greatly appreciated as well as any reference aids you have found helpful. Thank you.
Initially, definitely use CC’s predefined feeds and speeds for the endmill/material combination you are using.
This will provide a safe (and conservative) starting point. Then you can do one of two things to “push” feeds and speeds farther:
- increase depth per pass, leaving the rest unchanged. Stop when you hear/feel the machine struggling, then dial down by 10% and you have your max reachable depth per pass (for this tool/material)
- increase RPM and increase feedrate accordingly. This will maintain the same cutting load, but since you will spin faster and feed faster, it will take less time. Once you max out RPM (at 24000), you can also increase feedrate alone, but this will increase cutting load, so again experimentation will tell you when you have pushed it too far.
Tools like HSMAdvisor and GWizard have some value, but only…if you already know how feeds and speeds work (which kind of makes them difficult to use for newbies). It’s been 5 years and I still don’t know what to do with the crazy turtle/hare slider in GWizard…
If you’d like to get a basic understanding of how feeds and speeds work to go beyond experimentation alone (which is quite fine…), this section of the shapeoko ebook may be of interest:
It’s shapeoko material but the principles apply to the Nomad too, you just have to dial down the rules
You can also ask the community where to start for a specific tool/material setup, folks will have good starting point for you and this will be the opportunity to discuss where the values come from.
Very nice. Thank you!
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