My spindle locknut seems very hot. I have been doing some signs today and I am starting to surface the signs with the whiteside 1" bit before vcarving them. But when I remove the whiteside bit the lock nut seems unusually hot to the touch. The motor is not laboring and I am only surfacing about 1/32 of an inch. Any ideas why it would be hot and what do I need to check? I have been away from the shop for a bit but I don’t recall the nut getting that warm/hot. Maybe it was like that before and I just did not remember that.
There’s this thread about a similar problem on a Dewalt?
Was the bit itself very hot ? If not…
I just got my Flir Thermal camera out and the shaft/locknut is 135 F (hotest point) while carving. Does anyone know what the temp should be? i am running the Carbide 3D spindle.
Now at 141 F
And yes the bit is hot. The spindle is getting hot regardless of the bit being used.
1" Whiteside surfacing, #201 1/4" endmill, or 1" 90 vcarve bit.
I can’t recall that my (Makita) router collet ever went beyond “slightly warm”, but I’ll let other users comment how hot theirs get. I suppose you could try and let the router on while not cutting anything, and see if it heats up similarly (to completely rule out thermal transfer from the cutter…but based on what you describe, it seems unlikely that the cutter itself brings that much heat, not while surfacing at 1/32th DOC with a large surfacing bit at least…)
Thanks Julien. Maybe it gets that hot and I just did not notice in the past? But hopefully others can let me know what their temps run. I will post the thermal images later when I can transfer them to my office PC.
I will also just let it run for a while (no cutting) and see what the temps are. I am using a Flir E8 camera so the temps are very accurate.
If it’s heat transferred from the rotor windings then there’ll be more heat when the router is working harder, it’s what the cooling fans in the routers are there to deal with.
Are you running it at low speed and higher torque loading (i.e. large bit) ? If so then it’ll be creating a fair amount of heat but without the airflow that it was designed to have at high load.
Are the cooling vents and the vanes in the internal fan clear, is it moving air?
Liam, how do I check the airflow? It appears the air flows in from the top but I can tell how much air is flowing. I have an airspeed meter I could go get and check it that way??
The temps are high even when not cutting. I took my air hose and blew on it for a while to cool it down but the temp climbed right back up with no cutting.
Hmm, that doesn’t sound good at all, if it’s that hot outside that suggests it’s even hotter inside where the heat source is.
Is this the Carbide spindle or one of the DeWalt / Makita routers?
There’s generally a pretty strong jet of air out of the outlet holes when they’re running at speed. No idea what measurement to take though, sorry.
I’d visually inspect the air inlets and outlets for fouling.
Also, as suggested in the linked thread, check the bearings to see that they are spinning smoothly and you’re not just putting spindle power into heating up bad bearings.
Are you running at full or part speed on the spindle?
I am running it at #2. I think that is close to 15000 rmp. I would not say there is a lot of torque. The 1" Whiteside bit was taking off 1/32" in one pass. And it was not moving too fast. I also had a 1/4" #201, 90 Vbit (1") and a 1/2" 60 Vbit. Same heat on all of them. I seems to me there may be something wrong with my spindle.
It is the Carbide3D spindle. I am going to take it off and try to find the air outlets. I am not sure where they are but will find them and make sure they are clear. The bearings are very smooth.
OK, I’ve never used the Carbide spindle so I can’t say where the air vents are on that unit, sorry.
The smooth bearings is a not bad sign, if you can feel anything wrong with them at hand turn speed then they’re really lumpy at 20kRPM
That would be my read on it too, if it’s heating up like that with no load then clearly it’s either generating way more heat than it should be or the cooling system isn’t working properly.
Do you get a substantial amount of quite hot air from the air outlets? On the few occasions I made my Bosch or AMB Kress spindles heat up I knew about it with the hot blast from the cooling vents.
It is just many open ports on the bottom. There is plenty of airflow running thru there. I don’t have a whole lot of time on this unit so it is not like it has been run for hours on end. But with plenty of airlfow and temps getting up, there has to be something wrong it. I will be reaching out to Carbide3d and see what they can do.
That sounds like a sensible move if there’s no obvious obstruction to the air flow.
@LiamN, @tdurhamjr - I had a similar issue when I was surfacing my wasteboard. Or more accurately, each time I’ve surfaced my wasteboard 
Two things that will help:
- Speed up the feedrate, a lot. I ended up running mine at around 75 IPM with the same Whiteside 1" bit.
- Add a Sweepy dust collection boot if you don’t already have one. The extra airflow past/through the router has made a measurable difference, though I haven’t actually measured the temp like some of the mad scientists here with too much time on their hands, pointing at you @Julien.
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Then it’s probably a good thing that I refrained from commenting about really wanting to buy one of those FLIR cameras someday 
What’s worrying here is the heating up on no load, just spinning.
I agree, temperatures should be measured as
“Wouldn’t go there without a coat on”
“Shorts are OK”
“I wouldn’t touch that”
and
“I smell smoke”
Any greater precision in measurement is unnecessary 
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A good citizen wouldn’t think twice about wanting to restart the economy aaannnd, adding to scientific knowledge for us all by ordering such a device immediately.
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Yes, that is troubling. My 611 gets warm “shorts are ok” but certainly not to the point of “I wouldn’t touch that” while running no load.
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