[RTP_Burnsville]

Have any of you guys added a high speed spindle to your Tormach Z axis? If so what?

I want to do some engraving and small PCB isolation routing/drilling. Both of these require running 1/8 inch shank bits >20K. I have a Proxxon (dremel tool) but before mounting it would like to know if there is something better I should be looking at.

Thanks,
Robert

[nitewatchman]

I added the Tormach 24K water cooled spindle. MECH higher performance than a Dremel/Router spindle and also quite.

[rdsi]

I decided to roll my own high speed spindle because I wanted more flexibility with it. I decided to go with a water cooled unit rated for 2 HP & 24K RPM’s. My primary goal was to have something portable that I could use on several machines but it’s primary home would be on a router table.

So this is what I came up with:
Attachment 347286
Attachment 347288
Attachment 347290

So I just bought the components & put it together myself. It took a little machine work to punch out the cabinet and make a mount.

Attached is the cabinet schematic how I decided to wire it up for anyone curious.

[kstrauss]

I'd love to know more about your spindle since I've been thinking of doing the same. What is the source of the spindle? How is runout, noise, reliability, etc? How do you handle tool length?

[rdsi]

So I bought this spindle in March of 2015 from UGRA cnc for $335 (looks like his price is now $355). Yeah, it’s from china but it is pretty good. I cannot measure any play on the shaft and the run-out on the ER 16 taper, midway, is only a tenth. Their spec is less than 0.001” so I’m pretty happy about that.



It is very quite & you can have a normal conversation with someone while it’s running. So far I have not had any problems, but its not an everyday tool.

Being a collet based system there is really no way to utilize the tool table the way it was intended. I just use an empty position putting in the tool diameter and length as 0. Then I load the tool and zero it. If your need is for lots of tools changes it’s gonna be a pain. Same issue with the Tormach offerings.

I have about $1,200 into it but that’s including the power box so I can operate it else where. One could utilize the Tormach VFD instead.

My next project with it is to regrind my manual mill R8 spindle taper with it. That will be challenging!

[davebaldwin]

Kress spindles are a big upgrade over the Proxxon.

Kress Elektrowerkzeuge: Milling motors : Power tools

Dave.

[RTP_Burnsville]

Thanks guys.....

Robert

[Mooser]

The odd time (very rarely) I need to do some engraving or small cutter surfacing I use a Bosch colt variable speed router sistered onto the spindle. I saw someone else use this system somewhere (probably here on the forum) and already had the colt so it wasn't a huge deal to make up a bracket.
Collet sizes are of course rather limited but I did get a 1/8 and 3/16 but I think I've only ever used the 1/8.
M

[tbev]

I wanted one of the Tormach products but you have to zero your tool with all of them so I just did the clamp to a 30k RPM router from home depot, cost $80.. Wired it into the coolant pump plug, works great, I'm making the same parts about 3X as fast with the same bit. I thought it was kinda lame but it's working incredibly great.

[rdsi]

Well I did the R8 regrind on my manual mill using my high speed spindle. It was out about 0.003”. After checking the spindle & bearings I decided it was built this way so the only fix was regrinding the taper.

So I setup the spindle parallel & inline with X axis. It takes time … Then I cranked the head over to set the proper angles for dressing the wheel and did that.



Then I re-trammed the head and then cranked it over to 8.425 degrees. You can run an indicator between the quill & table to get this set correctly.



Finally, I did the grind and took off about 0.0045": to get it cleaned up.



I was very happy about the finish and the final results are now 0.0003” runout – good enough and a lot better.