[webgeek]

Hi all; I'm working with a group of people to make a series of identical CNC routers. Our last project was a series of 3d printers that are coming out great so we are going to do the routers next. We are looking at a gantry-router design with a bed of 24" x 18" and it MUST be able to cut aluminum. I know that means it has rigidity concerns. etc. and we'll work through those. Our big question is about spindles.

We would love to find a nice QUIET spindle we can use inside without deafening ourselves. The air-cooled 800 watt (1hp) VFD spindles I see on eBay look like a solid choice. Has anyone been able to run those off 110v house current? Or are we stuck with 220v? And if we are stuck with 220, it seems that we should just go a good bit bigger as the price is only minimally different.

We are interested in any advice or opinion on these spindles we can get. Thanks!

-Mike

[aarongough]

Unfortunately it doesn't really matter how quiet the spindle itself is, as soon as it starts cutting wood, or aluminum, you're going to need hearing protection.

I enclosed my CNC router in an MDF enclosure to cut the noise down, it worked really well and you can have a comfortable quiet conversation next to it now.

I use a Dewalt DWP611 router, and I highly recommend them. I'm not sure how well it would stand up to cutting aluminum constantly, but I've certainly logged a lot of hours on mine cutting wood. I have cut some aluminum with mine as well but not much.

[Christian Knüll]

Hi,

cutting aluminum is always loud - especially on a large gantry that acts like a nice sound-box.

The spindles are available for 110V from some buyers at request.
However: neither wood routers nor those chinese spindles are well suited for aluminum. Both are fine with tool diameters up to about 5mm. But for larger diameter they just lack the necessary torque at lower rpm.
So take at least the 2.2kW spindle - you'll never need 2.2kW but at lower rpm it at least has considerably more torque than the 800W version.

[DonFrambach]

To quiet your aluminum cutting system, you can also consider using a slower cut speed (which requires a low rpm spindle). I have used a Taig spindle (1K to 10K rpm) on my small fixed gantry router and did several metal cutting projects with it (aluminum and brass). The 10K was OK for cutting wood but not great so I now have a Kress spindle which is quiet cutting air and fairly quiet cutting wood. I have not yet done an aluminum project with the Kress spindle.

As Aaron said, putting the router in an MDF box can make a huge difference. Again, my router is smaller (14" x 14") than what you're building so it was fairly easy to enclose. I can run my enclosed router in my attached garage and my wife (who is super sensitive to router cutting sounds) cannot hear it in the house. I took care to mount my router on rubber mounts within the enclosure to prevent the enclosure itself from acting like a large sounding board.

For dust collection, consider a Fein vacuum. Those are extremely quiet. In fact, the vacuum is the noisiest part of my system so the shop vacuum selection was critical. The Fein is advertised at something like 57 db. I measure 72 db at its highest setting which is pretty quiet. But if I'm doing fine finish cutting which produces only a few fine chips, I can lower the vacuum setting which makes my system even more quiet.

Good luck with your builds. Have you considered putting a build thread here on CNCZone?

Edit:

You are already aware of the need for fairly high rigidity for aluminum cutting. If you have insufficient rigidity, you will get chatter which leads to poor quality cuts and a great deal more noise! Although I have seen quite rigid moving gantry machines, fixed gantry routers are much easier to make sufficiently rigid for aluminum cutting though they are not as space efficient.

[ger21]

At higher rpm's (16,000+), an air cooled spindle is much louder than a water cooled one.

[fixtureman1]

At higher rpm's (16,000+), an air cooled spindle is much louder than a water cooled one.

Not really my HSD air cooled is the same at 1000 as at 18000 It uses a separate fan to cool not the spindle shaft fan.