Chip Chad

Feeds and Speeds Calculator

Feeds and speeds are not two independent numbers. Spindle speed, feed rate, chip load, width of cut, and depth of cut are all coupled — change one and the others move. Chip Chad keeps them linked so you tune the setup, not just a single value.

Why a lookup table is not enough

A chart can give you a surface speed for 6061 aluminum with a carbide end mill. What it cannot do is account for the fact that your desktop router has a quarter of the rigidity of the machine the chart was written for. Running chart values on a light machine is one of the most common ways to break tooling and get chatter. Chip Chad builds machine rigidity into the recommendation from the start, not as an afterthought.

  • Machine rigidity affects safe chip load and maximum engagement.
  • Hobby routers and benchtop mills need tighter limits than production VMCs.
  • Chip Chad adjusts the recommendation to your machine class, not a generic one.

What Chip Chad gives you

Open Chip Chad, pick your machine, material, and tool, and you get a full linked recommendation: RPM, feed rate, chip load, width of cut, and depth of cut. The results page also shows tool life estimates, deflection risk, and surface finish quality for ball-nose and corner-radius end mills. Tune any slider and the rest adjusts to stay consistent.

  • Linked RPM, feed rate, chip load, WOC, and DOC in one recommendation.
  • Tool life, deflection, and surface finish estimates on the results page.
  • Coupled sliders — tune one value without breaking the rest.