I know tons of folks are using various Chinese spindles with great success, but after looking at Luke and Julien’s epic posts about getting them to work with VFD, I’d happily pay a reasonable premium if you guys want to pick one and support it with some nice n00b friendly check boxes in CM instead of making me become an electrical engineer on top of being an aspiring sign maker/machinist 
8 Likes
That’s a very reasonable feature request, and it would go hand in hand with the HDZ, for power users (and gear lust addicts…)
At the rate we’re seeing of new products being rolled out by Carbide 3D recently and in the near future (C3D dust boot, yay), this might well be on the horizon, who knows (wink wink @Luke)
4 Likes
Seems reasonable. After all, we now have CM Pro for power users…
2 Likes
I may have misinterpreted something, but I thought @wmoy hinted doing some testing with some bigger spindles.
1 Like
I plan on acquiring one in H1 2020, and sharing that experience. Aiming for a 65mm 1.5KW size that I can run off 110 so I can avoid needing 220V.
5 Likes
hope you plan on something air cooled since, well, watercooling does not sound appealing to me as a long term thing
1 Like
No interest in the AMB/Kress/Mafell spindles?
They’re air-cooled, narrower so as to reduce lever effects (which unfortunately reduces the overhang cutting area), available in 110V, and apparently the AMB has an electronics option which affords spindle control.
If you hold it concentrically in the standard mount, it doesn’t affect the overhang/work area. (Also would therefore not reduce lever effect). You’d need a custom mount to properly utilize them though, the mounting collar is super low on the spindle and if you stuck that on the Shapeoko you wouldn’t be able to reach the wasteboard. I can’t imagine them to be much quieter than a router. Smaller diameter would mean the fan blades have to be really aggressive to cool the motor. And I’d prefer to stick to an ER collet system just because I already have dozens of them.
TBH, vs a router I don’t see them being worth the money.
Vs a VFD spindle I don’t see any advantages other than convenience. If I want to step things up, it’s VFD or go home IMO.
3 Likes
I’m hoping to eventually arrive at projects where the reduced lever effects would help.
That is a good point about the mounting — they fit the old style Z-axis carriage spindle plate a bit better (but that introduces its own difficulties).
Excellent point about the more aggressive/noisier fan blades — that is a major disincentive.
There are some versions which use ER collets, so that’s a wash.
The convenience aspect is a big deal for me, but not sure it will ever result in my doing anything more on this than kibitzing.
Automatic Tool Change would be cool though:
2 Likes
Is this thread only covering Shapeoko spindle upgrades? I’ve started down the rabbit hole on plug and play Nomad spindle power upgrades, should have prototype up and running in about a month. This little machine really wants to chomp metal faster!
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.