How many hours of cutting time from a bit?

I’ve been running a 1/8" carbide spiral bit roughly 40 hours in medium density fiberboard. The top edging is beginning to be slightly rougher that when first cutting and the particles left from the cutting seem to be getting more like chips. Unsure if the glue in the particle board could be dulling the blade sooner than normal?
My next question is should I move to a 1/8" straight two flute bit? Would you recommend this type of bit for MDF?

CNC machining has two problems that can raise there ugly head. 1 feed rate to fast 2 feed rate to slow. Problem 1 can cause burning and broken tooling. Problem 2 causes the tool to rub and not cut well so the tool dulls faster than it would with the correct feed rate for the material being machined. Wood by its nature is abrasive so to low a feed rate can dull a tool fairly fast.

I do not know what you are using for figuring your feed rates. I use Gwizard when I am working with my CAM programs to make sure I get my feed rates where they need to be.

Dave

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I don’t know but I get a lot more life out of my blades and bits using a blade and bit cleaner, and a friction reducing coating like these.

Lubricants: Robot or human?

http://www.amazon.com/Bostik-GlideCote-formerly-TopCote-10-75/dp/B00DAN8P2O/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1433004052&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=bostic+glidecoat

Bit Cleaner http://www.amazon.com/BOESHIELD-BLADE-BIT-8-OZ/dp/B001N9YLWK/ref=sr_1_1?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1433004153&sr=1-1&keywords=Blade+and+Bit

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@DavidSohlstrom Thanks. There is so much to learn. I am a Mac user, and pretty much everything to this point has been plug and play. I’m building flat art in Adobe Illustrator and bringing the .svg into Easel. After that, it’s all Easel (at this point, not much for ‘guidance’ in Easel other than default settings).
I set up another post to try and weather through this stage for us who don’t have any experience with this. I am set at 100 in/minute at .025 depth. The spindle is defaulted to 18,000 RPMs.

Pike

I just ran your numbers through Gwizard. Your numbers come back OK.

If you don’t have a copy of Gwizard I would highly recommend you get a copy. It is well worth the money.

Dave

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Hey David,

Gwizards web page is not very clear on price. How much does it cost to buy this software?

Thanks!

Brad

It appears, from their website that it is $79 per year if you buy your subscription in 1 year increments…

Thank you Michael! I’m not sure why I couldn’t find that page myself, but I appreciate you hunting it down for me!

Brad

Keep an eye on Gwizard Bob has sales fairly often. I got a life time for a good price on one of his sales. He also updates the program at regular intervals.
He also has the Gwizard Editor that you can run you Gcode in to check that it is doing what you want it to. I use it on a regular basis.

Dave