If you want to know my thoughts on the LR2 as well as recommended improvements you can contact me at bleepbleepbloop1234@gmail.com.
The topic of the thread was “performance boost” not “intro advice.” It’s clear there is some hostility here by the bias that is being portrayed & disproportionate reactions given to mere upgrade advice. I apologize if I made you upset with my criticisms of the LR2. Have a nice day.
I thought this point was worth addressing.
Setting aside the clear advantage of being able to run smaller wires and faster movement speeds, the stepper motor torque curve usually reaches a peak at 50-75 rpm or something to that effect (it depends on the motor). Before this point it declines, after this point it declines. Doing slower cuts does mean you are operating in a sub-optimal part of the torque curve. Moving at higher RPMS does produce higher torque at least before the peak, and at those higher RPMs the higher voltages do improve torque. You can see that clearly in examples such as this and this. Now the question is if it is reasonable to cut at the speeds where this higher torque band occurs. I will attempt to estimate this but it really depends on your particular setup.
A GT2 timing belt has 2mm per tooth which combined with a 16 tooth pulley produces 32 mm/rot. 50 RPM is 1600 mm/m which is roughly 27 mm/s. In other words, based on this estimate it is feasible, depending on the type of motor and cutting speeds, that you can reach a more optimal part of the torque curve at a reasonable feedrate for the LR2 and, at that RPM, 24v would probably improve torque. Someone running a 1/8" bit through MDF could, in my opinion, easily reach 27 mm/s. I believe the benefit would be far greater for motors with 400 steps/rev.
If you are running your motors at sub optimal values then, yes, the input voltage doesn’t matter. A racecar and a minivan both perform the same at 25mph. But, as I said before, I would be more comfortable continuing this conversation via email.