Hello all - I am preparing my first larger job. Using V-carve Pro and Lead 1515. I ran the job summary and the total cut time is showing 218:20:52!! When I changed out the 3d roughing and detail tool to .50" , it dropped the tooling time to 99:38:46. Is this POSSIBLY correct or am I doing something wrong? Thanks in advance!!
What is the feed rate you chose? How large is "larger"? When I am doing 3D carving work I am roughing with a 1/4" ball nose endmill at 5000mm/min with a 40% stepover and a 4 to 5 mm depth of cut. I have been running my 1/8" ball nose end mill at 4000mm/min with a 10% stepover for finishing.
Giarc - Attached is the CRV. I did check those cut settings,. on the roughing, I adjusted feed from 1524mm/min to 4000 mm/min and stepover from 10% to 40%. I also changed the finishing from 1270 mm/min to 4000 mm/mm. It improved the times but it's still high. Thanks for your help!
Giarc - I changed the depth of cut to .15 inches. Reduced the project cut time considerably. I'm new to the CNC world, and just not sure what to expect, related to times. Is this what I should expect for a project this size? I'm attaching the summary, with adjusted cut depth. Thanks
I have never cut anything that large. I do not have Vcarve pro. Are you doing the whole thing with ball nose endmills? If so, that is probably why it is taking so long. There are ways to "cheat" and make the process much faster. You can use vectors and assign the ball nose to only cut inside the vectors (ie. the rope and palm tree area). Then you could pocket out the rest of the flat areas and vcarve the letters. Personally, I have never tried it, but I often use vectors on my lathe so my finishing bit does not waste time finishing my tabs which are much larger than tabs needed when cutting on a regular CNC machine. However, using ball nose endmills for the whole thing may make for a better finish. **Edit. I see you have done these things already. I was just able to view it on my computer.
I figured it out. Your plunge rate was around 381mm/min (sorry my version is set to mm and converted it). When I changed it to 1000mm/min (39 IPM) it significantly shortened your time. I figured this was the problem when I saw your finishing pass was way faster than your roughing. Finishing is only one layer usually so the slow plunging would affect it less time-wise. I also plunge at 1000mm/min with my finishing pass. Change yours as well and that will significantly reduce your finishing time. Ignore the red vector I drew on the sign. I was trying something that did not help at all. I am curious how you set up your tool paths because it seems very efficient and I have never tried something like this. Was there a particular Vectric video that you could point me towards, or other resource? Thanks.
