Pump/tubing for water cooled spindle

[Peleacios]

Hi, I am setting up a water-cooled spindle loop but I am a bit confused regarding pump/tubing, I'd appreciate any helpful comments from the experienced.

I am planning on using an Aquastream Ultimate to cool the spindle. Not cheap, but I like the flow and temp alarms, plus it accommodates a small reservoir in the pump itself.
I am more inclined to the radiator/fan setup than the big bucket of water approach. So I am thinking about a 240 radiator with two fans (could add more if necessary, but seems reasonable), the spindle, and the pump.
The loop 4 meters from the pump to the spindle and another 4 meters to come back. The lift is about 1meter. It's a big machine.

The spindle fittings are 8mm push-in.
So I either stick to 8/6mm PUR tubing for the whole loop, which I guess would be the major restriction in the system given the length. Or I use 10/8 directly from the pump to almost the spindle and there I install a couple 10/8 to 8/6 adapters and a short length of 8/6 tubing… not sure if that would make much of a difference.

Sadly the fittings in the spindle have a very odd thread similar to a M10 but I can't figure out the pitch, so I can’t replace them easily. Plus the opening is not that big, so I don’t think I could replace them for a much bigger tubing size anyhow.

So, do you think your Aquastream Ultimate will do the job (considering the length of the loop)?
And would you recommend just 8/6 tubing or the 10/8 + 8/6 combo?

Thanks in advance for any recommendation

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[GigaWatt]

I removed the fittings on my spindle and used these from eBay.
Fitting Metric M8 M8X1 Male to Barb Hose ID 1/4” 6mm Brass Fuel Air Gas -i6

My CRP4824 Pro is in my basement which has HVAC and remains a constant 70 to 72 degrees. I only run one fan, so I think a 120mm rad with 1 fan would be adequate for my system. I use a small submersible pond pump, about 10 gals per min. My fans are 120v and start with a relay in the control system.

[Peleacios]

That's all good news then.
I see you have the pump under the 48x24 table, so you have a considerable amount of tubing too.
The Aquastream has even a bit more flow than yours, and the lift is quite high, so I expect it to be able to force the water thru that length of thin tubing.

I am more inclined to the double fan setup tough since I want to avoid the bucket of water. The pump reservoir holds 100ml only, so it relays basically on the rad/fan for cooling rather than the amount of liquid... but for what I've read, it's considerably simple keeping this things cool enough.
I've seen some aluminum rads, but copper/brass seems of a superior design. So I will be using cooling with additives rather than water/glycol to avoid the alu-copper disaster at some level.
Going this route a liter or so should fill the whole system, and only need to be flushed maybe yearly. So coolant cost is negligible anyhow. I've been on the water bucket team too and had to flush monthly, plus you need a lot more liquid, so it can get expensive and I just simply want to avoid innecesary maintenance.

So... you ended up anyway having an ID of 6mm after changing the fittings?
My spindle came with an M10, for an ID6 OD8 tube. Pretty much the same tubing you are using I guess. For me, it just seemed a bit too thin considering the length. On the other hand, if you look to the water cooled computer systems, the seem to use ridicously thick tubes... so who knows.

[GigaWatt]

My tubing is 6mm heavy wall. The pump is is very capable of pushing fluid thru the tubing & spindle. My system has 2-120v relays in the control panel, so I choose to use 120v fans & pump to allow for automated starting of the cooling system. Using the pond pump kept the build cost low and is reliable. As an engineer, I can see where the features of the Aquastream would be useful.

[ger21]

From what I've read, the spindle itself is more restrictive than the tubing.

[Peleacios]

Went ahead and ordered the stuff.
Will be posting some pics when I get everything set

[GigaWatt]

From what I've read, the spindle itself is more restrictive than the tubing.

True, when disconnected from the spindle my pump flows twice the volume.
When this spindle fails, I will likely try an air cooled model.

[Peleacios]

Here some pics




I used a Thermaltake Pacific RL240 and kept everything aluminium.
Including tubing (8mm PUR), radiator, reservoir and the spindle chamber it uses almost a liter of fluid.

For whatever reason I can't get the pump to update the firmware, and therefore can't get the virtual flow calculation... but for the sound of it seems to be pushing the liquid thru the tubing without much effort at a decent flow rate.
I will update this to something more precise than "by the sound of it" when I get the readings.

I kept everything in a box to avoid the dust from the shop, and also potential disconects of the wiring.
I placed the radiator outside and a couple os sp120 inside. They create plenty of airflow. I opened a couple hoes in the back of the box and filtered the intake.

Apart from that, there is not much more to it.
Not the cheapest option, but does the job well, and it keeps an eye on temp and flow firing and alarm if there is an issue.
If the internal buzzer of the pump is not loud enough due to the shop noise, an xternal speaker of light signal can be wired to the pump to work as an alarm... will see if I use that.
Certainly the software has a ton of options I won't be using.

[Jerseydog]

How is your water cooling set working so far? I’m looking to get a water pump but don’t know which one to get. Are you satisfied with the Aquastream or are you going to get a different one?


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[Peleacios]

Well, it's still working but unfortunately, I can't say much more.

Dealing with the pump was quite a mess:
- The USB won't work on a regular USB port (even with the adapter) so I needed to find a desktop computer to hook the pump
- Then it would not pull any data since it came loaded with an older version of the firmware that needed to be updated to work with the suite
- While updating seems the board got corrupted... the manufacturer sent me a new one right away, respect to that.
- Again came with the old firmware, though this time the update went well
- Still, when it finally was able to pull data to the computer, the virtual flow sensor (the only reason for me to hook it to a computer in the first place) never worked. The manufacturer claims that if the flow is under 40 liters per minute then it won't work)

So although the manufacturer was nice to deal with, I would not buy this pump again for a spindle. I thought it would make things simpler and actually made them much complicated.
For its price, you could put together a pump, flow sensor, flow alarm, water temp (and if you are worried about your fans performance... read the RPM too) with an Arduino in way less time that took me to set this up for getting no information after all.

A spindle temp has to be kept cool but is not by far as critical as a CPU or a laser tube, and they don't get that hot that quick.
So for a computer maybe (I can't really say) is a neat little pump with a reservoir plus all the extras, for a laser would be a disaster so don't even think about it, for a spindle is overkill in my opinion; but it pumps.

[GigaWatt]

After reading your post, I will delete their webpage link from my favorites. My simple setup with the pond pump is still working great.

[Jerseydog]

Thanks for your response peleacios. I will be looking for a adequate and more simple pump. The only reason I was considering that pump was because of the monitoring options but a more simple pump will have to do. Once I build my custom PC that will be my pump of choice.


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