spindle choise help

[meph1]

hi i been looking for spindles not sure what to buy

CNC 400W Spindle Motor ER11 Mach3 PWM Speed Controller Mount Engraving Set | eBay

what can u tell me about this spindle if is any good, if is able to cut aluminum also?

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[A_Camera]

I have a similar spindle and for what I use it for is good enough. I don't cut aluminum, only plastic, mostly Delrin (POM) and acrylic, but have engraved aluminum and also copper as well as PCB, and that is just fine for. Cutting aluminum means that you probably need a more powerful one, unless you can accept working slow with only narrow plunges (probably less than 0.5mm) but I am pretty sure it could work with the right feed rate and the right mill bits. I prefer air cooled, and there are limited options if you don't want to use a router. I also like the ER11 because I am using very small end mills, down to 0.3mm, and I think ER11 is perfect for small mill bits, better than ER16 or anything larger. This means that my options are limited to weaker brush less VFD motors, or this type of brushed motors. My next spindle will probably be a Kress 1050, or a 0.8kW air cooled VFD. I think the Kress is very good but it uses a special collet and I don't know how good that collet is for small mill bits and micro milling.

It is difficult to give you advice without knowing what you want to use that spindle for and how your CNC is build. Cutting aluminum means that your CNC must be quite rigid as well, otherwise you will get a lot of vibrations. I am currently in the process of upgrading my DIY CNC, which is my own design. The upgraded version will be considerably more rigid and will in theory be capable of cutting aluminum at higher speeds also, but how that works in real life... I still have to check. The Z an X axis is ready, I am currently working on the Y. After that I'll test how well it works, but in parallel I'll also remake and upgrade the control box, including the power supply. After that, I may continue with a spindle upgrade, but that will not happen before the summer...

[meph1]

i have been doing my CNC from scratch, this is how it looks so far

i just finish the Y axis, working now on X and Z axis

Im using on my machine
4 Nema 23 stepper motor 270 oz.in=1.9NM ,3A 23HS8430 bipolar
CNC shield V3 with arduino using GRBL9
my motors are not working at 100% cause im using the DRV8825 drivers on the cnc shield v3, that only suports max 2A and motors are 3A, so i had to adjust my VRF only to 2A

About power supply im not sure yet what would be best, i was thinking a 24 V power supply cause shield only suports max of 36 V, been looking into this one peraphs you could tell me what you think of it
De SHIP DC24V 400W 16 7A Switching Power Supply for Stepper Motor 3D Printer CNC | eBay

about spindle what i was looking is something that wouldnt be to expensive and that would alow me to do some decent work on acrylics,wood and if possible some small works on aluminum

if possible leave me some links on some options on spindles i would apreciate

[A_Camera]

I think you have too many limitations in your design. You would be better off with a more powerful power supply and drivers. Those drivers may be OK for 3D printers or small CNC to mill soft material. Also, you have to remember that the spindle you chose would need much more than 24V to run at any decent speed. I am running mine with 36V and that gives me about 10k rpm. My power new supply (arrived and tested yesterday) will give me 46V and that will give me enough to get 12k rpm and high enough voltage for the stepper driver to get better efficiency and hopefully higher speed for the steppers. Currently I am running the steppers with 24V also, which is a bit low. What you could do to improve the voltage to the spindle is to connect a 12V, or even an 18V power supply in series with the 24V. That would give you 36V (or 42V). I used a 7A 12V laptop supply for that purpose, and I think these can be bought quite cheap. Of course, an even better option would be to get a real power supply, which is what I am building now for my CNC.

In other words, I think your biggest problem will be the drivers and the power, not the spindle. Of course, it would be easy to say that you should get a better spindle, because in general, the more powerful a spindle is, the better results you would get, but there is no point in using a large and heavy spindle with weak mechanical design or weak stepper drives. I believe that actually even your steppers may be a bit weak unless you run them with higher voltage. The inductance is pretty high which means that it needs higher voltage to work efficiently.

Regarding links, eBay is full of different VFD and spindle, if you decide to buy one, just search for 0.8kW air cooled VFD which I think should be enough for your needs. I don't know where you live, I am buying most of what I used in my CNC from Germany and Sweden. Here is a link to one supplier who is selling CNC parts. I bought several things from him, the latest was the parts needed for my new power supply.

https://cnc-plus.de/

Good luck.

[meph1]

thanks alot for the info i really apreciate

yeahh i know i got alot issues to figuer out in what would be the apropriate drivers and power supply that i should use, i wanted to buy some drivers that wouldnt be to expensive, i have 1 TB6600 chinese driver, but i have read so many bad reviews about it, and with so mutch to chose in market that i dont know what would be the best drivers to get with out spending to mutch..
i also been delaying those buys cause i want to make sure first that all the mechanical parts are working has expected before i invest in more apropriate material.

[A_Camera]

Continue with you project. It is fun and you will learn a lot, even if it may not result in a super performing high speed machine. No point spending a small fortune when one is at the bottom of the learning curve. In my first CNC I even made the lead screws and nuts myself because I did not want to spend the money it costs to use real ball screws and ball nuts. My first CNC was slow, but reliable enough and it gave me enough knowledge and experience (and money) so I decided to make an upgrade. Here is a short video about the Z axis upgrade.




Regarding the TB6600, I don't know about that driver, I have experience with the TB6560 based drivers and they are all crap. No matter what some people say, I don't believe it can be fixed and behave like other cheap drivers, like the DQ542MA, the ones I am using today. Never the less, at least the TB6600 driver would allow you the use of full 3A power to drive your stepper motors with, so it might be a better option than using weaker drivers. Perhaps your TB6600 drivers are good, so there is absolutely no reason for not testing them or at least the one you have. If it is only for one axis then you could test it on one axis only. Mixing drivers is possible, you don't have to have similar on each axis, even if that is the best. Try how it behaves, perhaps it is just fine, I don't know. I would definitely try it out.

[meph1]

im impress with your Z upgrade looks amazing, great work you got it there hehe
the DQ542MA drivers you using, how many microsteps you using on the machine settings?
do you use Grbl9 with arduino?
by the way i have look into the site link you sent and i must say the kress 1050 looks like a cool spindle, the price there compare to other sites i have seen, is the cheapest so far i have look arround

[A_Camera]

Thank you for your kind words about my upgrade work. There is though a misunderstanding somewhere. I don't use Arduino at all. Between the PC and the DQ542MA drivers I only had a BoB initially, but since a few months I have added a UC300 so now I am using USB from the PC, instead of the parallel port.

The microstepping is set to 8 currently because that was what I used before the upgrade of axes started. Once I am ready with my upgrade, including the upgrade of the power supply, I will check if another setting would be better, but 8 worked quite well for me before, so maybe nothing would be improved with a change.

[meph1]

they also have a smilar driver to de DQ542MA, the DM542A
what software you using with the controler UC300, mach 3?
i see some people using arduino with modbus in mach 3, but seems dificult to set up cause direct por manipulation, im guessing hehe