Hey Guys,

First-time poster, but hopefully can generate some good quality information from this.

Soo my this is where I am at.

I purchased a Biesse Rover J Plast a little over 4 months ago. I had a purchase order of 5,000 units of a product I designed. 5,000 units equaled to 25,000 finished CNC cut parts. 10,000 of those parts were from 9mm Hydrotek Marine Plywood and the remaining 15,000 units were out of 6mm Hytroket Marine Plywood. My shop is at around 6,000' of elevation I'm running 2) 25HP Becker Pumps paired with a 10HP (24000RPM HSD Spindle). My first issue arose with finding the correct spoil board. After many and many attempts, I settled with Ultra Light 1" MDF. This seemed to give the best hold-down and lasts until I get to about 1/2" thickness. PVC Edge banding.

Secondly was getting my feeds and speeds correct. I ended up purchasing GWiazrd and used their calculations. Needless to say, I burnt up my spindle in roughly a month and a half. Biesse said I was crazy for running my spindle close to maxed out, but the salesman said it will do 24k all day and night. Either way, the spindle was replaced by warranty. I'm reluctant to spin this above 22k now, but I suffered in completing this PO of 5,000 units, but it's finished. Now I have a PO of 20,000 units!

I'm back to testing and figuring out the best machining methods. I've purchased a second CNC to cut my 1,100 man-hours of routing in half. I'm not purchasing another Biesse. I was promised that it would not have any limitations, but only benefits from their processor. That is most assuredly not true on their 3 axis routers. It was complete and utterly a pain creating a post for fusion360 for this controller. If I did purchase another Biesse my post wouldn't work either so it's completely out of the question. Long story short I'm getting a machine that reads standard G-code with the same hardware specs.

Now back to testing, I'm finding that with my nested parts which range from 54-88 units per 4x8 sheet that I'm burning up bits in 2-3 sheets. I run as little as 7 sheets a day. In comparison to a cabinet shop, I'm doing enough cutting in a couple of hours than most see in a week. I've tried multiple different methods from slower to faster/ multiple depths/ doing a larger diameter to a smaller diameter in multiple passes/ all seem to dull bits at about the same amount of time. If the bit gets dull then my employees are sanding for the next month and it's moving my parts. So, in short, keeping my bits sharp seems to keep the operation as smooth as possible.

I've been using
Armana
46398-K 1/8 mortise compression
46200-K 1/8 down cut
46029-K 1/4 mortise compression
46181-K 3/16 mortise compression

Vortex
3115 mortise compression

These are my most recent test bits. I've used almost every other Armana bit out there that matches my type of cutting with the same results.

Sharpening bits seems to be out of the question because after my 2-3 sheets the hook on the end of the flute is basically sheared off. I have recently heard that all bits are meant to last for 15min of solid cutting. I do this in less than 20 min of my workday.

2 of my parts require hidden pocketing as which I need a router for. These 2 parts are the most time consuming and adds up to about 800 man-hours. The remaining parts are smaller and just need to be a 2d through-cut. I may switch to a laser cutter for these parts to eliminate the bit issue, moving part issue, headache, and be able to cut these parts in line with the router for reduced timing
.
As I said I am new to matching. I've been at it for 4 months and have overcome many hard-learned lessons, but I am still learning each and every day. I feel I have exhausted every contact I know. Most of my contacts that machine are primarily geared towards metal so their input has helped, but I've surpassed what they have been able to offer and now I'm strictly into the testing of high volume production with wood materials with machining methods.

The reason for this post is to generate any helpful knowledge I can pull from this user forum. Please don't hold back and give it to me straight.

Best,
Jake