Hi All,
I've seen pictures of disassembled 2.2kW spindles here but not much talk of the 3kW's, so I thought I'd post some. I bought this from a guy who got it about 2 years ago but never used it. Curiosity about the construction and build quality got the best of me, so I decided to take it apart. I also figured the bearings would need re-greasing after sitting so long, so there was no reason not to. It comes apart a little differently than the 2.2kW's and I learned some lessons along the way that I'll try to share. Hopefully this will do someone some good in the future. I have 21 pictures, so this will be a little long-winded. They are mostly shown in reverse-order of reassembly.
The first picture shows the engraving on the spindle, made by GDZ. I looked up their website a while back, but now I get a warning that it may harm my computer, so I won't post the link. I looks to be the same one sold by "smpart" on ebay. All of the others that I've seen there have a black nose end, and smaller electrical connector.
The second picture shows the spindle mostly disassembled along with two special tools at the top that I made to help take it apart. After figuring out how it came apart, I think it could be done without them, but they make it a lot easier. At least I have them now, and am confident that I can change the bearings when the time comes.
Picture 3 shows what the bearing looked like after removing the rear cap and bearing cover. The spindle was already removed, but it would be there if this were the initial disassembly step. As you can see, it looks pretty dry.
4 & 5 show the 4-pin electrical connector. It has a ground pin that is connected on the back side to the connector housing. As you can see, there is is a nice thick rubber gasket that insulates the connector from the spindle end cap, and thick paint under the screw heads. Nice try but no cigar, there was no continuity between the pin and the spindle housing. More on that later.
6 & 7 show the tool that was made to take out the rear screw, which has left hand threads. The screw is in a pretty deep countersink, but it could probably be removed with some ground down pliers or whatever else you can come up with. I was happy to have the tool to make it easy though. Those pictures are of re-assemby so the bearing as shown has already been cleaned an re-greased.
Time for bed, more to come later..