[Jerry In Maine]

Another question about the 2.2 kw Chinese spindle I just received...

How much cooling do I need to provide. Will just a pump In a 5 gal bucket suffice or do I need a radiator of sorts? Automotive heater cores are cheap on eBay, but I don't know if that's overkill.

[Analias]

I have one of these 2.2 kw water cooled spindles on my CRP-4848. As temporarily cooling solution, until I did something with a radiator, I installed a pond pump and a five gallon pail using distilled water. It is working so well it I'm in no hurry to replace it.

I have run my spindle for two or three hours at a time with out the water in the pail getting too noticeably hot.


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[rb101]

I'm running a 2.2kw and using a water cpu cooler pump through a automotive transmission radiator with two 12v fans. I have maybe 1/2 gallon of coolant and never gotten the temperature above more then a few degrees above the ambient temperature.

[bushwakka]

I use a 5gal oil drum, as it has a threaded port for a hose barb at the bottom. The pump is a little camping diaphragm pump with pressure switch (40psi), which feeds a 10L pressure tank (because I had one available). I then limit the flow to the spindle to be a trickle (about 1/2 - 1L per minute). This way the pump only runs for about 20 seconds every 10 minutes.
I had plans to use the condensor radiator out of an old air conditioner (fitted with fan etc), but never got round to connecting it because it doesn't need it.

It can run all day without a noticeable temperature rise in the bucket.

I'm only spinning an 1/8 bit, so the spindle only pulls about 500watts continuous.
If you are spinning a large radius bit, then you will pull more power in the spindle and generate a bit more heat which will end up in the water, but I doubt you will need a radiator if you have a large bucket of water. If it does get hot, you can just change the water in the bucket.

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When I started, I had 2 buckets. One sat on the shelf, the other sat on the floor, and gravity did the work. Once the top bucket was empty, they swapped position and the water flowed the other way.

In hindsight, I wish I had just used tap water, and limited the flow to around 100-200ml/minute. My tapwater is always cool, so I could get away with low flow. I would have then just plumbed it in to water the vegie patch. It would have been much simpler, and only cost me a $4 flow control valve.

Bushwakka