Hey guys looking to switch to VFD spindle and looking for cooling ideas ,really don’t want to build pond pump cooler so who’s using cw 3000 chillers and what brand and wear to buy is best for the money ? And what’s your experience with them good or bad ? Thanks in advance for the help.
My experience here
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I’m using a tiny PC water cooling pump and a 120mm radiator with fan for an 800W spindle. Most of the time I don’t even need to run the fan and the spindle feels colder than room temperature. That’s obviously not as easy as just plugging in the chiller, but my point is that the chiller is way way overkill for a spindle. One time I forgot to turn on the pump for about 30 minutes of run-time, and after I turned it on the spindle was back to cold within 2-3 minutes.
Thanks guys for the info figured for the price to build one I would just get cooler . Again thanks so much.
Just getting everything coming so I can do the big upgrade around Christmas. During our shutdown.
Did you purchase a vevor model or best equip, or other if you don’t mind me asking?
Honestly, I got it from ebay typing “CW-3000” and almost randomly picking one from the results list. It must be a no-name clone. Still, it works just fine (after I modded the fan as described in that thread I referenced) and is not dead yet, so far so good.
S&A Is considered the top brand of Chinese chillers but also more expensive.
As far as the CW-3000 goes, it’s simply a water storage container, a pump, a radiator with fan and a flow sensor all in one unit.
It works like a car radiator system. So it will only cool the water to the temperature of the air around it.
I have one and It works great for the spindle.
I liked the one that had the water level in the front instead of back and 120v for me. I have the 9L tank.
Don’t remember the brand but I actually purchased it from Amazon, The vendor had a US warehouse.
Make sure to get the one with your countries electrical system, 120v or 220v.
For those interested, it’s possible to buy a real chiller from S&A too. That’s the CW-5000 and above. It costs around twice as much though.
(I say “real” because a “chiller” should have some kind of refrigeration system allowing it to achieve sub-ambient temperatures, while a “cooler” is what you call something that doesn’t)
I wouldn’t recommend anything with a refrigeration system. The bearings in the spindle have grease that needs to get to a certain temperature to actually be useful. A quick Google search I came up with 130 degrees F on a website. I’ll look at the papers that came with my spindle to see if I can find any temperature ratings.
So I think most people would be good with the CW-3000 unless you live in a super hot area, think desert.
Now on my 100w CO2 laser I have a CW-5200 to keep the temperature of the laser tube cool.
I’d sure be interested in what Carbide3D has to say about this since they have a new machine coming out with a water cooled spindle 
Thanks,
Jeffery
105F doesn’t sound right, my Mechatron spindle says in the manual that the coolant temperature can never be higher than 35C (95F) or the machine should be shut off. It also says the bearings should never reach a temperature higher than 45C (113F), or the spindle thermistor should cause the VFD to E-stop.
Mechatron also initially quoted me their KG5000 chiller when I was buying my spindle from them. They really strongly recommended it and I had to explicitly ask for a passive water cooling loop instead.
You don’t have to set it to a chilly 5C or anything but it might make a difference to set it to say 20C in a 28C room, or with a hot enclosure.
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Thanks guys ordered my 3000 yesterday everything I’ve read also brings me to the conclusion that the 3000 is way for me . Thanks for all the responses to my questions!
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