New Owner of a Nomad 883 Pro

[Steve Clarkson]

I got kicked out of the Laser Engraving Forum so I went out and bought a CNC.

OK....just kidding. I wanted to dip my toes into the CNC world and know absolutely nothing about them, so I thought the Nomad was a good machine to learn on.

This whole Speeds & Feeds thing is killing me.

So if anyone has a file they want to share for an item that is 8" x 8" or smaller.....feel free to post it along with remedial step-by-step instructions.

I've never been in this section of SMC before.......so I'm off to read all the old posts in here.

[Steve Peterson]

That looks like a nice compact machine.

You could cut wooden clock gears. Clayton Boyer seems to have the most popular plans, but there are also other designers out there. Brian Law and Woodentimes also have good plans.

You could try cutting some lithophanes.

I have a different type of machine. Top speeds are around 120 inches per minute. I have an 800W spindle with a range of 6-24K RPM. I typically cut plywood with a 1/8" router bit between 40-60 IPM at 10-12K RPM. For a clock gear I use 2-3 passes to go through 1/4" plywood. The first passes are .005" oversized and I follow up with a single full depth pass at the final size. You may need to do some experiments to see what your spindle can handle and adjust accordingly. Try cutting shapes in Baltic birch using a range of speeds and feeds. Each machine will have a different sweet spot depending on rigidity and spindle power. A production CNC machine would cut a single pass at 150-200 IPM and 24K RPM.

[William Adams]

For the Nomad, feeds and speeds ought to mostly be automatically resolved --- Carbide 3D has a chart of feeds and speeds, and Carbide Create and MeshCAM (when using the Carbide 3D license and auto toolpath feature) will auto-calculate them --- use the technique from Precise Bits to test / evaluate and make sure that they work for you.

There is an interactive version of the Carbide 3D chart at:

https://public.tableau.com/profile/willadams#!/vizhome/Carbide3DCNCFeedsandSpeeds/Sheet1?publish=yes