What spindle motor for a diy PCB CNC machine?

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    Default What spindle motor for a diy PCB CNC machine?

    Hello, i am expirementing with building my ovn little PCB CNC milling machine, and now i have to get a small spindle motor.

    Theare several on ebay and bangood, which are dedicated spindle motors (300 -400 watt) but they are a little big and heavy and i do not think i need such big one for only pcb milling.

    Anyone have an idear for a nice PCB cnc spindle.....i was thinking about using one of the brushless motors for quadcopter drones, they seems to run fast, could that be used or are there a better solution?

    Regards
    Martin - Denmark

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    Default Re: What spindle motor for a diy PCB CNC machine?

    Sorry, but if you think 3-400W motors are too heavy for your machine then you have a problem with the structure of your machine. I can not come up with anything lighter than a 300W DC motor but those are a bit too weak in my opinion. You'll be surprised how hard PCBs and copper clads are. If you have a too weak spindle you will not be able to keep up any serious milling speed and drilling the PCB will be a big struggle for the motor. In my first CNC I had a 400W DC motor and it was possible to use that, but was not a very good solution. Now I have a 1.5kW 3 phase brushless high speed spindle and it is like day and night. Can easily work with PCB, using fast feed rates and the results are considerably better than before. I doubt that a quadrocopter motor is strong enough. The best I could think of which is light but extremely noisy is a small Dremel tool, but I would not recommend using those in a CNC mill, the play is just too much for any serious accuracy.

    https://www.youtube.com/c/AdaptingCamera/videos
    https://adapting-camera.blogspot.com


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    Default Re: What spindle motor for a diy PCB CNC machine?

    The DC brushed spindles you see on Banggood you have to be careful with, there's some good ones from reports but all the ones I've seen have been garbage, with huge runout, high noise, and breakdown after a small amount of use. The spindle that you would find would be perfect for PCB work, is the one sold be the maker of the Sable-2015 cnc machine. I have this machine and the spindle and it's extremely high quality and great value. This is the link to the vendors page, you might need to email them for info/pricing on the spindle:

    CNC Sable 2015 tafelfrees - Sable001

    Failing that, as you only need a 1/8" collect for PCB work, an RC motor would also do just fine in most cases as you don't need much torque at all for PCB work other than when drilling, but even this doesn't present any great issue for anything with a little grunt. The Quick Circuit 5000 PCB CNC router actually uses a small spindle very similar to an RC motor.

    cheers, Ian

    It's a state of mind!


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    Default Re: What spindle motor for a diy PCB CNC machine?

    Hello A_Camera and aarggh,

    First of all, thank you very much for your responds to me.

    A_Camera, you are absolutely right, the weight of the spindle i an issue, i do not want to hate too much mass to move, so a lighter spindle would be good, especially for PCB encraving where i do not need so much cutting power i would think, but on the other hand i understand from you that you needed much higher spibdle power of 1,5 kw sounds very high, and a 1,5 kw spindle is also a little heavy?

    aarggh, yes, i will look at the sable-215 spindle.

    I have also been looking at the WEGSTR mill, have you seen that, they have a pretty impressing demonstration video, and their spindle looks small, but do the job like a charm, what do you think, if you have time you could take a look at:?

    https://wegstr.com/





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    Default Re: What spindle motor for a diy PCB CNC machine?

    A 1.5kW spindle is a bit of an overkill for your needs but in my opinion high rpm is a great advantage. So even if I would only be interested in milling PCB I would still go for at least an 800W spindle. On the other hand, if a 400W is too heavy for your machine then my advice is worthless, I have no idea which motor would suit your needs. Perhaps you should state your weight limit.

    https://www.youtube.com/c/AdaptingCamera/videos
    https://adapting-camera.blogspot.com


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    Default Re: What spindle motor for a diy PCB CNC machine?

    Hello A_Camera,

    Year, i am new to this, i think i will try to buy a smaller and cheaper motor and do some hands on expirements, to get into this "world" :-)

    Bu the way did you see the WEGSTR mill, and the videos, what do you think?, the spindle on this machine looks small, but it seems to de a good job, right?, or?



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    Default Re: What spindle motor for a diy PCB CNC machine?

    If you can your hands on the later models of the Wolfgang engineering spindle it will do what you want with very little run out.

    I've had two of these spindles, the earlier models had a cooling problem with the bearings, but his latest model fixed this and works fantastic. Would fit on the smaller banggood type cnc no problem


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk



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    Default Re: What spindle motor for a diy PCB CNC machine?

    Quote Originally Posted by mtolesen View Post
    Hello A_Camera,

    Year, i am new to this, i think i will try to buy a smaller and cheaper motor and do some hands on expirements, to get into this "world" :-)

    Bu the way did you see the WEGSTR mill, and the videos, what do you think?, the spindle on this machine looks small, but it seems to de a good job, right?, or?
    Hi,

    I am sorry but I am very skeptical to small and weak motors. Yes, I looked at those video and the results are definitely very nicely looking but to me, it seems like advertisements and like in all adverts, probably not entirely true. But in general you can say that given you have a high enough RPM and low enough feed rate you can mill with almost anything in many materials. But the idea is that you should not need to use half the night to make a normal sized PCB, for example a 100 x 160mm double sided. With that machine, even if the advert gives you the impression that you can do than, I think that you can't do it in reality, at least not if you regard your time to be a valuable.

    Here is a video showing my own CNC making a PCB:



    But of course, my machine is a lot heavier as well as the spindle is a a quite larger, 1.5kW 3-phase high speed motor. My first CNC used a much weaker 400W DC motor and that worked also, but the results were worse, the speed was slower and it took much longer time, so there are clear benefits in using better equipment. If you are seriously limited by weight and space then try a small and light motor. Perhaps it will work just fine for you.

    https://www.youtube.com/c/AdaptingCamera/videos
    https://adapting-camera.blogspot.com


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    Default Re: What spindle motor for a diy PCB CNC machine?

    I forgot to mention that the faster the better for pcb, doesn't need to be high wattage as chipload is very low. But does need high rpm and low runout. I'd say 24k would be min rpm but u might get away with 16k. 50k is best, most car brushless motors will get to 48K.


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk



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    Default Re: What spindle motor for a diy PCB CNC machine?

    Higher rpm = faster feed rates = quicker boards


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk



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    Default Re: What spindle motor for a diy PCB CNC machine?

    Quote Originally Posted by madeinoz67 View Post
    Higher rpm = faster feed rates = quicker boards
    Well... higher RPM is not equal to faster feed rates but definitely ALLOWS for faster feed rates. If you can or can not have fast feed rate depends on other things, like the mechanical design of the machine, the way you move the axes (direct driven screw, lead screw pitch, belt driven, belt pitch and so on), the rigidity of your machine and a lot of other parameters. But it is definitely true that higher spindle RPM is better than lower RPM and even if PCB is not soft as foam, PCB milling does not require very high torque but the RPM must be kept because if the RPM is lost or severely lowered by the forces then you will not be able to keep the feed rate and risk braking the tool.

    https://www.youtube.com/c/AdaptingCamera/videos
    https://adapting-camera.blogspot.com


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    Default Re: What spindle motor for a diy PCB CNC machine?

    Hi,
    I use a German made aircooled asynchronous spindle of 750W at 24000 rpm. Given the small diameter of tool used for PCB work high rpm is essential
    as is very low runnout.

    My spindle has angular contact bearings, the minimum standard for this sort of work. Steer away from any spindle or router that uses ordinary deep groove ball bearings,
    they have to have such clearances to accommodate the speed that the bearings 'rattle', not what you want in a spindle. Often those bearings are mounted in a rubber
    cup, a cheap and easy way to fix minor misalignment or vibration but the death knell for runnout free operation.

    If you look on Ebay there are plenty of Chinese made spindles, air cooled, water cooled, from a few hundred watts to 5kW, with and without inverter....and the list goes on.
    I'm not a great fan of Chinese made stuff but many of these spindles are perfectly good. Most are rated to 24000 rpm. Look for those few which go higher
    30,000 or 42,000 and even some at 60,000 rpm.

    The only time my spindle even looks like its trying to work hard is when I put a 2mm diameter endmill to mill right through and around the outline of a board. The bottom line is
    that high power is not required for PCBs. Different story for aluminium, so it may pay to get the biggest you can afford so you can do other things with your mill.

    Craig



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    Default Re: What spindle motor for a diy PCB CNC machine?

    The problem with anything below the basic 800W 24k Ebay spindles (from what I've seen,) is most are slower, many have poor bearings (not AC,) and some basically are just a motor with an ER collet adapter pressed on the shaft. Terrible for run-out and stiffness.
    You won't need anywhere near 800W for isolation routing, but when it comes time to drill the mounting holes and route out the board outline more power is handy.

    There are relatively inexpensive 300W "60,000 RPM" spindles out there as well. I've got an old example of one, and I'd recommend staying away from them. I burned out the bearings on my first one running it at 1000 Hz (which should have been 60k RPM, but was quite a bit lower I believe,) and I found that the front bearing on my second one got quite hot at 48,000 RPM, but was usable.



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    Default Re: What spindle motor for a diy PCB CNC machine?

    Hi,
    I saw this:
    High speed spindle with controller unit

    NSK is a great brand....this could be very good value for someone....if I had the money to spare I would nab it.

    Craig



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    Default Re: What spindle motor for a diy PCB CNC machine?

    Hi All,

    Although an old thread I would like to put to rest the misconception of milling a PCB on a Chinese CNC machine found
    on Amazon or elsewhere.

    Below is my CNC machine.


    What spindle motor for a diy PCB CNC machine?-cnc-3020t-jpg

    Tool is V bit 30° 0.1mm.
    Motor Spindle is 230W 11,000RPM fitted with ER11 Collet and at 36Volts.

    Stepper motors are NEMA 23, 57 x 57mm 1.8A/Phase 40N.cm or 4Kgf.cm.
    I upgraded Toshiba TB6560AHQ drivers to DRV8825 as the 'Z' axis was loosing steps due gravity, the
    result was the V bit was digging deep into the substrate.

    Replaced the original stepper controller board with Arduino's Atmega328p running GRBL ver 1.1F.
    Grbl is open source, high performance software for controlling CNC motion machines.

    Below is a sample milled PCB for SMD

    What spindle motor for a diy PCB CNC machine?-atx-pfc-pcb-jpg

    I will also recommend using OpenCNCPilot, this software can auto-level your warped PCB, it's open sourced too.
    It's a GRBL compatible G-Code Sender.

    Cheers,
    Hanspeter.



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    Default Re: What spindle motor for a diy PCB CNC machine?

    Runout
    Runout
    Runout

    When the runout is as big as the size of the cutter, the cutter breaks - quickly.

    Cheers
    Roger



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What spindle motor for a diy PCB CNC machine?

What spindle motor for a diy PCB CNC machine?