[MechanoMan]

"Buying a replacement spindle" is somewhat pointless seeing as you'll buy the same problem all over again.

What "problems" are you having?

I've talked to a few people that run there spindles 8 hours a day M-F, all year round making them $$. Most average a year and a half from that source, and his application. Not bad for at all. Of course you always have a few bad apples here and there. "mileage may vary".

Prices from love happy shopping on ebay (including shipping, no VFD).

.8KW= $201
1.5KW air cooled = $220
1.5kw water cooled= $220
2.2KW watercooled= $313
3kw air cooled= $400

If you can get a year of service out of them, running them all week long, all year, making $$ its basically an expendable item and a tax write off.. If your a hobbyist and not using it for business, then it will probably last you an extremely long time if your just fooling around on the weekends.

Really what other options do we have? A 2.2KW HSD spindle costs almost $2600 dollars. A PDS Colombo spindle costs $3-$4K.


$313 dollars starts to sound really good Damn these cnc machines. They nickel and dime us to death, and there so addicting! haha

I'm not saying a Chinese spindle is a bad choice.
I'm noting LOTS of people talking about bearing failures, sometimes right out of the box.
The decision making criteria is more along:
2.2KW watercooled linearmotionbearings2008 (Chai) $296
2.2KW watercooled lovehappyshopping $313
2.2KW watercooled Keling $449
.... "all the other models...." $xyz

So the question here is whether it's better to get the "dirt cheap" version and maybe have to fix/replace it in a year... or tomorrow... or throw a bunch more money at Keling or whatever for purportedly better bearings, or just get the cheapest spindle and good bearings and press your OWN.

IF we could come up with a solid source for good bearings at a good price, that could change things quite a bit.

[MechanoMan]

So I found this source and talked to the guy personally:
2.2KW spindle on UGRACNC.com

This is the same seller as "fall_douglas" on eBay. Buying through UGRAcnc.com is actually cheaper though.

He said they've got "UTE" bearings, and they're supposed to be as good as NSK. Two 7005 in front and one 7002 in back.

He said that he's run them for a long time and is very impressed with them- he started with an lovehappyshopping spindle awhile back and it was wonky and made funny sounds right out of the box.

Of course, anybody can say anything they want, he's a seller. The crowning qualification here is he's a "US seller", although I'm not even sure what state he's in, the website reports no physical address. I WAS able to reach him by phone, though, which is pretty goddamn mind-blowing unprecedented in the Chinese-spindle market.

[jsheerin]

Taizhou UTE-bearing Co., Ltd. - angular contact ball bearing, ball screw support bearing, dental handpiece bearing, medical X ray tube and CT tube bearing, electric spindle bearing - EC Plaza

Looks like those are still Chinese bearings. The price reflects that. They could be good, could be bad. It's really impossible to say. The problem is that we probably see more of the people who have happened to get bad bearings as the people with good spindles have less of a reason to post here about them. So we're likely not really seeing the true distribution of good / bad bearings in these spindles. I do agree with you that if we knew that we could just drop in new high quality bearings if we got a dud, they'd be much more appealing.

[MechanoMan]

Well, VXB looks like a pretty serious vendor of many types of bearings.

Ceramic,Miniature Ball Bearings
They sell all this stuff on eBay too.

The 7005C angular contact bearing is $220 for a duplex-pair version and $110 for a single (need two), and $92 for the 7002C.

The "B" (7005B) versions are DIRT CHEAP, but only rated for 13K RPM with grease lubrication.

Hey, why is the rear bearing a 7002 and not a 6002?? The "7" is an angular-contact version, but this doesn't look like a thrust load because the 7005 pair already bears the thrust load. In fact, I may be going out on a limb here, but a second thrust bearing seems worse because the shaft will expand with heat. The angular-contact bearing there won't be able to deal with any movement of the shaft.

At these prices, the high-speed, high-temp ceramic is not much more expensive.

It looks like maybe the open-cage design of the ceramics may not be a problem, if the bottom of the spindle has some kind of seal.
Oddly, VXB does not list a maximum RPM for ceramic. Are they that high? Like infinite? I have no idea. Wikipedia says ceramic balls are 20%-40% higher RPM than their steel equivalents.

You know what? I'm kinda liking the idea of shopping for ceramics for this one convoluted reason- I don't think they counterfeit ceramics. Just a theory. They're too expensive to make and it's manifestly obvious they're not ceramic if they're anything less. Thus there might not BE any crappy ceramic bearings, so attempts to bargain-hunt might be far less risky.

Honestly though I don't know much about ceramic bearings in practice. They're lighter and stiffer than steel and that increases their speed rating. I know they can withstand very high temps, thus also increases the speed rating, and might be why they have nothing closing the faces, rubber or polyamide might not be able to withstand the temps. The lubrication used must still be able to withstand those temps or it's kinda pointless. I don't know if there will be complications press-fitting these onto a spindle shaft. Obviously you won't hammer it on. I wonder if there are any cases of shock loading which could cause

[Pplug]

A zero touch plate would not work with ceramic bearings. You would need a clip to ground the bit in the spindle for the plate to touch and ground out.

I know many expensive spindles use ceramic bearings for many cutting applications so why not here? Your guess is as good as mine.

[MechanoMan]

I did wonder- does the spindle rotor NEED to be grounded?

I'm not sure why. It might pick up a small static charge with some materials, but I don't see what that'll do. Even if working foam or rubber, I just can't picture getting enough charge up to actually create a spark that might be dangerous.

[diyengineer]

I did wonder- does the spindle rotor NEED to be grounded?

I'm not sure why. It might pick up a small static charge with some materials, but I don't see what that'll do. Even if working foam or rubber, I just can't picture getting enough charge up to actually create a spark that might be dangerous.

I misinterpreted your previous post. (EDIT).

[DonW]

So has anyone purchased one of these 3KW air-cooled spindles yet, or recently? Looking for feedback before I jump in and potentially waste money.
Thanks,

Don

[MechanoMan]

The water cooling is a really good idea. It keeps the temp down very well, it's quiet, and it won't suck dust into the cooling system.

I don't see why you'd want to go with a higher-powered spindle with just air cooling.

[DonW]

I might be springing for one of the 3KW air cooled spindles from China. I made an low offer trying to find out the weight of the things, and it was accepted, much to my surprise. I might go for it since the price is pretty reasonable. Of course, add a VFD, wiring, collet set, etc. etc. and it goes up in price pretty quickly.

[DonW]

FWIW, I decided against the 3KW air cooled spindle mainly due to weight. It's almost 27 lbs, and I feel it's too heavy for my router Z axis to handle. I went for a water-cooled 2.2KW spindle instead.

[ger21]

Does anyone know the weight of the 2.2KW spindles? I found one auction that says 5Kg, which is 11 lbs. Is this correct, or is it much heavier? I thought I saw someone say it was 20 lbs?

[DonW]

I heard that the shipping weight was around 6KG, so that sounds in the ballpark.

[ger21]

Can someone tell me the length from the bottom of the 215mm long body to the bottom of the collet nut.
Or, the overall length, not including the electrical or hose fittings?

Keling has a dimensioned drawing, but it doesn't appear to be correct.

Thanks,

[dfmiller]

Gerry,
You are correct the drawing has the wrong body diameter for sure. Mine from Keling is 80 mm dia. I will pop out later and measure mine up. My WAG is 1.5" without measuring.
Dave

[dfmiller]

Gerry,
On my unit with the nut in it's normal position it is about 1.5" from nut to lowest portion on the spindle body. It about 2 " from nut to major diameter of spindle body. Mine has 2 steps in it.

Dave

[DonW]

So my water-cooled spindle arrived today from China, and it has different fittings than what some folks have gotten on their units. These appear to take a metric sized tubing, and not the standard 1/4" OD refrigerator hose that you could use on the other ones. Has anyone got these on theirs, and if so, what hose are you using, or did you find some decent fittings to replace these with to use standard English tubing?

Thanks...

Don

[DonW]

Oops....duplicate post. Sorry.

[dfmiller]

Mine takes 1/4" ID tubing with 3/8" OD. I could not find 1/4" ID 5/16" OD tubing. :-(
I had to adjust the ferrule. Its metric. I chucked them up in the lathe and used a 3/8" Endmill to remove the small of material.
Then things fit perfectly. :-)
If you don't have a lathe I am sure a drill press or a steady hand with a hand drill will solve the problem.

The fittings on mine might be a 6x1.0 MT but not sure. They are strange size.

Dave

[DonW]

Yes, naturally they are metric, which doesn't do us much good here. Worse, often times they aren't even a standard metric, they are something funky and we don't have the ability to buy parts to fit. What can you do? It's not like anyone here in the States manufactures spindles...
Thanks.