Quote Originally Posted by Neale View Post
So you could write G1 X100 Y1000 F1400 and actually cut at that speed.
I think you meant Y100 or X1000 there.

Otherwise, nicely summarised.

Quote Originally Posted by Neale View Post
I think this means that if I stick a G0 move in at the top of my gcode file with a ridiculously fast F setting, then LinuxCNC will always give me the fastest rapids that preset max X and Y settings permit, but I should make sure that the F setting for g1 cuts is the actual cutting speed that I want.
The 'F' command does not affect G0 moves. By definition, G0 moves the machine as fast as permitted by the motor tuning, unless you've overridden it using the feedrate adjustment, in which case the speed would be lower.

Quote Originally Posted by Neale View Post
As far as the original question is concerned, all this means is that you can look at max speed and accel along each axis independently in order to avoid missing steps and other nastiness, and actual speeds over the bed are just an accident of geometry and don't affect design and tuning parameters. If you are missing steps along X, say, during rapid feeds you might choose to reduce accel or max speed on that axis but you don't necessarily have to change Y if that is working fine with its current settings. However, if you get skipping during cuts, then it's a bit more complicated and you probably need to reduce the F cutting speed parameter just to reduce load as you can't tune this by axis.
Yes, that's correct.

Quote Originally Posted by Neale View Post
And my apologies, guys - I was desperately trying to find an excuse for using nested integral signs and the odd greek symbol from the LaTeX library but just couldn't find a way to fit them in...
Here's an easy way to get some different symbols in... derive a formula to find the direction (angle) for which the machine can travel at the highest feedrate, for given X and Y rapid speeds.
It's just occurred to me that you could actually do something useful with that formula - potentially surface your bed faster by using a raster pass set to that angle.