I’m in a unique position where my wife has a successful etsy store, so although I’m new to using my cnc, I already have a market for selling my goods. But having begun making things, I’m already interested in decreasing my cut times.
I realise the LR2 is an “economy” machine, and can’t compete with a $10k industrial cnc. But are there modifications people make to increase feed rates?
You’ll need to do some testing with your machine and materials, but in general you get faster turn times by adjusting your cut depth instead of feed speeds. You can especially tweak to exact multiples that match the full depth of your piece.
To start, make sure you’re not doing more work than you need to. Doing things like avoiding pockets is huge. Avoiding multiple setups, avoiding tool changes. For example, if you need a 1/4" pocket in a 1/2" piece. Maybe you could cut a hole in a 1/4" piece and glue it to another 1/4" piece to create a pocket. You can also try to leave sone work for the human, so you can stay busy while it’s working.
After that, feeds and speeds. Going deeper or faster both improve your total time, but it’s better to slow down and go deeper because the steppers have more torque at lower speeds. But if you’re cutting at 6mm deep and you want 13mm deep cuts, then you’re still doing three passes. Better to either go a bit faster at 13mm/3 or push it to 6.5mm deep and go even slower. At some point, you’ll hit the limit for the materials and bits and you’ll be stuck.
AFAIK, there isn’t anything proven after that. I suspect higher voltage power supply, like 24V will help keep the steppers at full torque at higher speeds, but I don’t have experiments to back that up. You could choose to go with more amperage and heat sinks on the motors and active cooling on the controller, but more forces will mean less accuracy and at some point, you’ll need to acknowledge the limits of the materials. I doubt that’s going to be significantly better than just maxing the depth for the material.
When I had the big ice job running I saved a ton of time by increasing my rapids. Especially the Z. Those little moves can add up quite a bit too…
Start with the previous suggestions until that is not enough, then capitalize on the fact that it is an economy machine and run two or more of them. Since you have to babysit it anyway you might as well babysit a few of them at once. I can keep myself busy loading, unloading, tab trimming, cleaning, and packaging with just two machines.
Two cheap machines are far better than one super expensive machine that is 10% faster.
Thanks. I just ran a a 20mm cut slow but with 6.7mm depth and it cut perfectly. I was doing 4 steps at 5mm before, but to get the same total runtime I’d have to speed it up past its capacity, so this was a great tradeoff.
Thank you Jeff. Your advice on this forum is always helpful and appreciated.
Great point, Ryan. I believe a smaller machine for the little jobs may be in my future.
Speaking of utilizing my babysitting time wisely, I’m getting in great shape doing pushups and pullups during these long cuts Just installed some gymnastic rings to up my game in there. ?
I’m glad you understood those ramblings. 
Can’t you make a robot to do that for you?
I’ve got a set of rings leftover from my gymnastic days… Haven’t thought of using them in the garage, I wonder which box they are in. 
Funny you say that, I’m actually working on my second LR2.?
[quote="vicious1,post:5,topic:11153"] Start with the previous suggestions until that is not enough, then capitalize on the fact that it is an economy machine and run two or more of them. Since you have to babysit it anyway you might as well babysit a few of them at once. I can keep myself busy loading, unloading, tab trimming, cleaning, and packaging with just two machines.
Two cheap machines are far better than one super expensive machine that is 10% faster.
[/quote]