Is G PENNY worth the shipping cost or would another brand be suitable?
I am looking at ordering a Pro XXL after the budget crisis that is Christmas has subsided. Would love the HDM but… I am also thinking of buying a water cooled spindle. My thought is the CC spindle, while likely powerful enough for now, would be too loud. I have considered enclosures to suppress the noise as well but eliminating noise would be better than trying to mask it.
From my experience with a 220W G-Penny, the answer is yes to all of these questions. However, I do not have experience with any other brand of spindle.
However, my spindle’s lack-of-noise was instantly and greedily devoured by my dust collection system. My vacuum cleaner is much louder, or at least fills that frequency range that sounds loud, than my spindle.
Water cooled is worth every penny. I love my G Penny. When I was running the router I would have to walk into another room to talk on the phone. Now I stand next to my machine and talk on the phone.
The only reason to go bigger on spindle size is for a bigger ER collet size. A Shapeoko will have a hard time using all of the power of even an 800W spindle. I use an 800w 65mm GPenny water cooled spindle and love it. There was a significant noise reduction when compared to the Carbide router. I cut 90% aluminum with my setup.
I would pick an 800W spindle because it will work better with the Z-Plus that ships with the Shapeoko Pro. They aren’t as heavy as a 1.5KW or 2.2KW spindle and most are 65mm diameter which fits in the existing mount. Go bigger and you usually have to step up to the HDZ with an 80mm mount.
The water cooled spindles are near silent. Cutting and dust collection/extraction/evacuation methods will be the dominating noise from the system.
The upgrade is definitely worth it, in my opinion.
-Noise reduction.
-Tight tolerances.
-Gcode spindle control (on/off, speed). [I compared the cost of getting the BitRunner for my router setup vs going watercooled].
I have a generic Chinese 80mm 1.5kw ER11 110v spindle that I bought on eBay from someone who bought a CNC machine and wanted a name brand spindle. At the time anything 65mm was not available. I had wanted an 800w unit but the only ones available that I could find then were air cooled. From those who have 2.2kw ER20 spindles seem to love the capability of using larger diameter cutters/edge finders.
The bigger collet seems to be an attractive option but I have wondered if a bigger spindle would be like a race car engine in a daily driver, fun for a while but, the cost, not very practical.
Water cooled appears to be the way to go. So now it is a matter of size. It seems that question is answered by deciding how much money there is to be spent. 800 to 2.2 seem to work.
Pricing seems pretty comparable across that range for kits. Basically comes down to whether you want to work with the 65mm HD mount that comes with the SO Pro and get the 800w keeping it lighter or spend extra for the 80mm HD mount and capability of the ER20 collets with the 2.2kw.
Assuming you have the z-plus, it sounds like most would recommend the 800w path - Huayang, MySweety, G-Penny seem like the prevalent companies.
I am in the research process. Have decided on the Pro XXL due to cutting area vs footprint. The HDM is nice but in the cost analysis and cutting area make it a future tool not a lets get going tool. So, not having purchased the machine yet I have options. That is why I am reaching out to the experts on Shapeoko. Yes CC builds them but the people who use them “OWN” them. Given the shear number of participants and aggregate timeon task of the group the forum members probably know more about the capabilities, pros and cons, and useful upgrades of the Shapeoko machines than CC designers do. Shapeoko is wise in actively participating in user group discussions for many reasons.
Please note that my understanding is that once the HDMs are out the gate that we will be working up a spindle kit for out other machines — no idea on timeline, but something to look forward to.
I think my neighbors probably heard me yell out “f*** yea!” I know it’s a while before this happens but it’s great to know that it’ll be available in the future.
From the specs on the web page, it looks like the 1.5kw spindle will use ER-20 collets too - I don’t think I’ve seen any 1.5kw spindles with ER-20 collets before. That should be a game changer.
I think @RoughDraft40 is referring to the specs on the Carbide 3D website for the Shapeoko HDM. Here are the specs for the HDM Spindle which one could only assume that this would be the same spindle offered in a package for other machines as an add-on:
