https://www.onlycncs.com/ - Seems to have a great idea. This site lets you choose your machine, your spindle, and endmill, and material and spits out feeds and speeds. There is an optional adjustment multiplier as well. There is a feedback button if you find the values are off in some way.
I love this idea.
My question is do I sponsor this or try to implement our own settings page?
Funny thing is I have been taking notes of the best way to have a feeds and speeds page for a little more than a month now. The feedback part…that I love. If we could have an automated for saying too conservative or aggressive, that would help.
The issues I see are, small builds versus large builds have different capabilities…but we all know they should both handle the same conservative starting setting and adding a smaller machine multiplier of like 1.3 might take care of it (I assume that would only multiply federate not plunge rate.
Software guys - is this a tough one?
Like I said I have some layout ideas but kept getting lost on implementing feedback and other users input without turning this into a part-time job keeping up with feedback.
You have built quite a community here that could warrant its own calculator. Enough machines that are different enough from the Chinese imports and all others. And an active enough community to pitch in and help.
At the same time I definitely see the benefits of joining an already built system for the community as a whole and pitching in.
Either option I think is great. I would probably lean towards our own system but I also understand that is the much harder, more time consuming solution.
Well, that site is way less risque than I would have guessed.
Just having a calculator where you select options and get results wouldn’t be too bad if we have the appropriate calculations. Something like that could go right in the docs. It would basically be a more complicated version of the machine calculators.
Once you start taking feedback, it’s no longer static content and it gets more complicated.
I haven’t looked at this site yet to see what it offers.
I picked a random machine and they are close enough. The reason I would consider something of our own is making people leave the site is just an added complication, a small one but still an added step.
Even better would be to have something in CAM, one stop shop. A feeds and speeds calc would work like, https://app.fswizard.com/, if you could work it in reverse. put in your machines load tolerance, then endmill, then material. fswizard is a bit complicated for a first time user.
In reality fswizard feels like the bare minium calc a real user would need. Slotting versus pocketing and all that. Only CNC is just a starting point. I could just make a list off all endmill starting points and that is probably all we need, with a list of extreme values some members have gotten to so we have a range.
Yeah I think I just talked myself into a “starting feeds and speeds” list, with a max value after. At first this is going to suck filling in so many values and links/pics. It will quickly reach saturation and plenty of “close enough” values where users can draw conclusions.
I think the key is me running a full sheet machine again. This is basically the worst case value for starting points. Anything smaller can be pushed faster/harder. Users can add posts with links/vids whatever proving other values for the max end of things.
I created a throwaway account just to check it out. The available models to select are mainly from the sponsors, which makes sense, but there are two generic options.
I made some selections just to see and this was the results it spit out for the parameters.
Yep, editing markdown tables by hand was a PITA. Easier with AI now though.
Curious how calc will work, if there’s lots of variables, or whether list/table is good enough.
Performance capabilities vary depending on build materials, endmill runtime+condition, build assembly, table assembly, and more… Accurate modeling not informed by actual real data would be tricky. You’d likely end up with a calc spitting out safe numbers, leaving perf on the table.
Personally like knowing what the conservative safe numbers are, but, also what’s possible, what limits have been pushed by community members via their videos, and profiles they’re using.
I’d be ok with enabling fluidnc plugin, and/or, an opensource post gcode post processor that uploaded high level stats, usage time of my LR4. Data gathered can help individuals and community in multiple ways, including figuring out feeds-speeds.
I 100% agree on this. I am still learning the intricacies with my machine and knowing what others are using for similar machines is very useful. It sets a good foundation/reference for a benchmark.
For me, no calc. Just tested and proven basic starting point. Beyond that fswizard has always been linked on the basics page and is easy enough to use once you know what you need.
Too complicated. it will never work for everybody.
“here are some super conservative setting that should work, if not your bi tis dull or you have a build issue.” and “here is how far it can be pushed”. Let lets people know when 8mm/s-40mm/s is the window or 2mm/s-5mm/s.
