[boydage]

Hi all. I built a CNC router last week. It runs well, all is tuned and hey, I am happy with it. For testing purposes I screwed a crappy router to it which unbeleivably is still going. The shaft has huge amount of play. Anyway. I bought a 2.2kw spindle inverter which I feel is going to be too heavy for the axis. No matter I have decided to build a much stronger and robust machine (as we do)

My question is - can anyone actually say a 400watt spindle motor is good for anything except for very light engraving? Like would it have the grunt to cut 18mm MDF?

[wizard]

I haven't used such a spindle but have an assortment of routers in various sizes. In the case of routers you fit the router to the task at hand.

Hi all. I built a CNC router last week. It runs well, all is tuned and hey, I am happy with it. For testing purposes I screwed a crappy router to it which unbeleivably is still going. The shaft has huge amount of play. Anyway. I bought a 2.2kw spindle inverter which I feel is going to be too heavy for the axis. No matter I have decided to build a much stronger and robust machine (as we do)

My question is - can anyone actually say a 400watt spindle motor is good for anything except for very light engraving? Like would it have the grunt to cut 18mm MDF?

400 watts is slightly over a 1/2 HP. That is on the small size. However your question is silly, on a CNC machine you fit the cut depth and feed rate to the horsepower available. This means you may be cutting at a depth of 4-6mm at a time or whatever fits the mechanics of your machine.

[jckstrthmghty]

Nothing wrong with a 400w spindle. Seen some very nice work in hardwood with that setup. As Wizard alrteady mentioned adjust your DOC and feedrates accordingly.

[louieatienza]

My thinking is to use a spindle with a horsepower rating that will get your job done efficiently or you're just wasting time - of course that is you're building a stiffer stronger machine right? I have a 2.25hp router and cut 3/4 MDF usually in 2 passes around 120ipm or so. Not fast compared to other machines...

But really, you set your parameters for cutting according to the machine hou're using, but you should design your next based on the tasks it need to accomplish...

[boydage]

Thanks Loui. Good answer to my silly question. Basically I am going to build a whole new machine to take the weight of the bigger spindle. I was just wondering if putting a 400watt spindle on my original, so I can sell it functional, would be enough for someone else. Most certainly not keen on watching a machine take hours to cut and doubt if amyone else would. Thanks for that. Regards

[JerryBurks]

If you want to sell it anyway, put a Bosch Colt router on. It is light weight, reasonably powerful and much cheaper than a spindle with VFD.

[louieatienza]

I should clarify that the spindle is as useless (or useful) as the person using it needs to be. For certain jobs it's probably more than enough. Then again why tie a potential customer to just that option when he/she can use their own?

[boydage]

Hey some good ideas put in the arena there. I do wonder though if I purchase a 0.8kw spindle and inverter, set the machine up so the spindle can be controlled by Mach3, that I would get a better price for it. 800watts must be a good general purpose runner. After a lot of consideration I am thinking 0.4kw might just be a little bit tiny. What I am looking forward to is building a much more robust machine to take my 2.2kw puppy. Not much is going to slow that baby down.

[wizard]

Thanks Loui. Good answer to my silly question. Basically I am going to build a whole new machine to take the weight of the bigger spindle. I was just wondering if putting a 400watt spindle on my original, so I can sell it functional, would be enough for someone else. Most certainly not keen on watching a machine take hours to cut and doubt if amyone else would. Thanks for that. Regards

I hate to say it but your concerns are rather silly, you have no idea at all as to how the new owner will put the machine to use. So there is no way to properly size a spindle for a customer you don't have. For example if the person that buys you machine intends to do engravings, PCB routing or a number of other tasks a 400 watt spindle would likely be more than enough power. After all how hard can you drive an 1/8" or 1mm end mill.

Honestly I would concentrate on building a machine that let's you get to work on building your bigger machine and let the buyer of your old machine worry about the spindle.

[DonFrambach]

I have a 400 watt VFD spindle on my small router which works great for my purposes. I use it to make detailed wooden carvings. Here are links to my DIY router:http://www.cnczone.com/forums/diy_cn...ter_build.html and to the way I incorporated the spindle into my router: http://www.cnczone.com/forums/router...ndle_110v.html

The spindle was a drop in replacement for a Kress spindle that I used previously.

Wouldn't use it for a full sized router but for a small one like mine, it works great.

[aarggh]

Same as Don said!

I have a spindle that's somewhat less than 400w on my smaller machine that used to do 3D machining of hard wood plaques, never had a problem and it was never stressed doing it.

cheers, Ian