That sounds brutal - Haven’t been to Houston but really enjoyed Austin whenever I visited there!
That quiet “passively cooled” ATC HF spindle looks/sounds pretty good and it’s reportedly manufactured in the USA! Here’s what it can (and could potentially) do with steel!
Yeah, I’m been watching them for a while. It’s an impressive spindle especially for the price and USA made. It’s frame size and weight (~26lbs) might be a little much for the poor little Shapeoko though 
Highly recommend the 1.5/2.2kw spindles, they can chew through aluminium fairly well
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Which spindle at what speed with what grade of aluminum? Your cutting power was probably about 50 Watts.
1.5kw air cooled, 6082 T6
An interesting development here is the Carbide Compact Router w/ ER-11 collet:
which affords one an easy transition to a spindle, and access to various collet sizes.
and note that I finally mounted my Mafell FM 1000 WS in such a way as to put the tool at the same center point as the other options (so no lever reduction advantage):
and that I’m still fiddling with dust collection options (either an adapter plate at the bottom, or a hacked up Sweepy Pro which needs further shrouding at the top to get the dust collection to work at the bottom.
Sorry to bug you, but I have one more question about the Mafell. I think you said you do not recommend it, but I think other posts reference that you use it on your own machine? I’m guessing someone working at C3D has access to lots of different equipment so if you’re still opting for the Mafell, there must be some benefits. Asking because I had a tough day changing tools and am willing to look at options to make this easier. Any chance you can jot down a quick pro/con list for the Mafell given your experience?
Moved your post to one where this was discussed.
My spin is:
Cons:
- dust collection is a pain — I couldn’t begin to count how many different iterations I tried before arriving at something which is reasonably workable, and it’s not as adjustable as a Sweepy, so doesn’t do as well on cuts where adjustment would be called for
- mounting is a pain — it’s annoying to have to make adapter plates, and they push the unit out, removing the advantage of the narrower body reducing lever effects
- mechanism seems to result in chatter if a cut is pushed hard — Marius Hornberger mentions this in at least one video — I just use the default feeds and speeds, so not an issue for me
- requires a transformer
- expensive
Pros:
- wonderfully well-engineered
- tool change mechanism is quick and convenient
- might be the lower speed could be useful for plastic or metals
I use it because I have it, and I’m stubborn — the only real justification, that I was doing a lot of test cuts no longer applies (if it ever did), and arguably, is kind of moot given the potential chatter issue — if some better engineer worked up a better mount and dust collection option, and if there was sufficient demand to get a 110V unit made it would be a lot more appealing.
I know the Fusion manufacturing extension allows you to designate sections of tool paths with different spindle speeds. Nice feature, too pricey for me .
Spindle speed control through CM , bring it on Please.
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“Spindle speed control through CM , bring it on Please”
I’m comfortable with CNCs but new to CM.
Is it not the case now that CM can control spindle speed? I was about to buy a C3D spindle under the assumption that CM would adjust the spindle speed per the Gcode file (generated from Vectric, in this case).
Yes, the VFD spindle will respond to the incoming Gcode.
My comment was to allow a CM user to change to spindle speed similar to the feed speed currently allowed in CM.
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Right now I think you can increase/decrease the feed rate mid-cut in 10% increments. Are you suggesting to have the ability to change the spindle RPM in a similar way?
Yes sir I am not of what increments should be used, but that concept.
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