Spindle advice

[brettddglas]

I am building a small cnc mill starting with a very nice german X-Y table scavanged from a non working jig boring machine. I am working on designing the Z-axis and am stuck on spindle selection. I really dont want to use an R-8 as I would want repeatability. Using a VF spindle drive is an option but most start at 8K Rpm or so and the range I was looking for was about 1K - 12K or even slower on the bottom end if possible say 500 - 12K. I know I can just buy a spindle cartrige but then that would price this project thru the roof. I would just buy a syil or something at that point.

Any suggestions?

[inventor83]

I have been looking for something similar for a while now. Check out tormach spindles at http://www.tormach.com/Product_PCNC_maint.html They have a bt30 taper or the r8 which you dont want. You could also look at Sherline spindles. http://www.sherlineipd.com/spindles.htm I am considering the sherline myself as I want to cut steel as it sounds like that is the same for you since you want such low speeds. Happy hunting.

[brettddglas]

An ER 16 would put me in the same boat as far as tool changing. And I dont think there are that many good MT1 tool holders as well as I don want to be beating the holder out every time I do a tool change. A BT30 would be perf as it would give me repeatability on tool changes and not have to set z-offsets every time I do a tool change. But you have to like the 500.00 difference in price of the sherline spindle.. <sigh> can never, ever be easy, hm?