I have seen this mentioned a few times on the forum and i perused the web site as well. But I have been lured down the rabbit hole before. and before I do so again, I would like some advice on whether or not to spring for this software at all. Any thoughts? I appreciate this forum and its wisdom.
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Seems like something for commercial use, where time is money, volume work, using up bits, etc. If you are a home user, using a limited number of bits and wood types, I doubt this is a necessary purchase. There’s a number of free calculators out there as well. e.g. https://informatyksiedlce.pl/_PROJECTS/feedrate_calc/index.php
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Morning Robert.
I bought GWizard Calculator and like it, but I don’t have a lot of “wisdom” since I’m just a CNC beginner.
I got it because …
-The price is relatively cheap for the basic version.
-There are a very large number of materials already in the program with their average hardness - wood, engineered wood, metals, plastcs, etc - which you can just select rather than looking around for that info.
-There’s a slider you can use to decide the “aggressiveness” of your cut, both rough and finish cuts. You also see the theoretical HP use go up and down with the slider.
-It’s helped me have more confidence in upping the feeds and speeds in a number of cases.
-There are a few router specific profiles in the bit selection
It’s worked for me in speeding up feeds and speeds selection for a complete beginner. However, I’d also take in to account the comments of Atroz and possibly others who would see it as maybe not necessary because you can find similar info for free, or maybe it’s overkill if you’re just working with a limited number of materials as a hobbyist.
By the way, I wouldn’t count on just entering the OF Woodworker in the program as a simple plug and play solution for all scenarios. There are still a few settings to play with as you figure out which is the best for your projects - but that’s part of the fun isn’t it?
The website is a little tricky to navigate sometimes, but looks like the basic version which gets you unlimited HP for the first year and 2HP for life is a little over $60 at this link. If you sign up with your email there are often discounts as well. I believe you can also try it for free. Like everything, there’s a learning curve to the software, but I didn’t find it to be much in this case.
Good luck!
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thank you very much that was extremely helpful
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They are currently having a sale - ends soon.
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I think the need for accurate speeds/feeds is an order of magnitude more important for milling metal than wood. Wood is a lot more forgiving, your feeds/speeds can be in a pretty wide range and still work.
Metal milling has a much smaller workable range, and I think programs like the G-Wizard are more important in that environment.
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