Feeds and speeds for cutting styrene

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Garth
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Jan 22, 2021 8:00 pm
Model of CNC Machine: Shapeoko XXL

Feeds and speeds for cutting styrene

Post by Garth »

I have a shapeoko xl and need to cut tags from 0.060 styrene. Router is a DeWalt 611. Will be using 1/8" single flute cutter.
My understanding is very high rpm and fast travel.
Anyone with any experience on speed and feed rate with this material?

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adze_cnc
Vectric Wizard
Posts: 4324
Joined: Sat Jul 27, 2013 10:08 pm
Model of CNC Machine: AXYZ 4008
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada

Re: Feeds and speeds for cutting styrene

Post by adze_cnc »

Garth wrote:
Wed Oct 19, 2022 2:07 am
My understanding is very high rpm and fast travel.
Styrene that thin, that small, with an up-cutting bit is in danger of lifting as it is cut so have it held down quite securely. A difficulty you’ll have if using double-stick tape to do so is styrene particles mixing with chewed up tape jamming the kerf possibly lifting the material even more.

To find “the right” speed it’s good start with general settings and fine tune them for your need. And a good place to start is chipload (size of particles in its simplest).

Looking up soft plastic with a 1/8” cutter you’ll find many charts that will indicate a chipload of 0.003 to 0.006 inches.

Your router has fixed speed levels according to the manual. The top three (4 to 6) are applicable (feed in inches per minute IPM):
  • rpm: 22,600 ; feed: 80 ipm ; chipload: 0.0035"
  • rpm: 24,800 ; feed: 88 ipm ; chipload: 0.0035"
  • rpm: 27,000 ; feed: 95 ipm ; chipload: 0.0035"
You can then think about settings for a specific speed (e.g. 27,000 rpm):
  • rpm: 27,000 ; feed: 110 ipm ; chipload: 0.0041"
  • rpm: 27,000 ; feed: 120 ipm ; chipload: 0.0044"
  • rpm: 27,000 ; feed: 130 ipm ; chipload: 0.0048"
  • rpm: 27,000 ; feed: 140 ipm ; chipload: 0.0052"
  • rpm: 27,000 ; feed: 150 ipm ; chipload: 0.0056"
  • rpm: 27,000 ; feed: 160 ipm ; chipload: 0.0059"
“Very high rpm and fast travel” is a bit too vague. On my machine that would max out at 24,000 rpm and 700 ipm travel. But the chipload would be 0.029”—five times tha maximum suggested…

Calculations made using online chipload calculator. Most recent versions of Cut2D have one in the tool database.

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