Hi @Yowie22,
I struggled with this too and we had a lengthy conversation here about just that topic. The main conclusions were:
- the manufacturer chipload recommendations tend to be made with much more rigid machines in mind, and tend to provide max chiploads not min chiploads
- the chipload that a Shapeoko can handle depends on how it was modded or not.
- the key point is to maintain a chipload that is above the rubbing limit. The consensus is that 0.001" is the golden value for metals, and a sensible lower limit for other materials
- the values I provided in that table are my best estimate for real life averaged values that Shapeoko users tend to use successfully, but they are definitely just “reasonable starting points” and one can push them much further in many cases.