Did you try mounting a Dremel in your stock spindle holder? Mine slips right in and was light years better. It is an easy swap if you want to compare. That experiment in aluminum is what made me upgrade my spindle. At 3.5 hp coupled with increased mass and very, very low run out, I now get that nice "smooth-and-nothing-can-stop-its-relentless-and-perfect-motion sound. Or… SANCSIRAPM Sound.
You don’t have the flutes in your collet, do you? If so, it can end up damaging the collet and you’ll either not be able to use it or it’ll cause a lot of runout on other bits.
No, of course I made sure not to stick it in too far. But it’s in the collet riiiight up to the start of the necking on the mill bit.
@Earwigger: my only dremel is a very, very crappy Aldi/Topcraft thing with busted speed control. And like 100µ runout. Not really an option.
I’m really hoping this motor holds out for what I’m doing with it. I understand a better motor can do much heavier cuts, but as of now it really just seems like the limiting factor is runout, not motor power. The motor is barely edging 50W on its own even when doing heavy wood cuts. I betcha if…
loud bang from the garage
Yep, the bit broke. I’m done for today, will be continuing on this tomorrow 
1 Like
It’s more about the torque the spindle can put out, which translates to the spindle maintaining its rpm in a cut. We’ve been doing some internal testing with the spindles recently, and even the quiet cut 48v 400w spindle will lose RPM when cutting anything harder than plastic. You might get 12000 RPM freely spinning with a S12000 command, but the moment you start cutting that will drop lower depending on cut depth. In the case of the 611, theres enough horses to keep it spinning fast. You still will lose RPM since the dewalt doesn’t have PID, just much less.
As far as runout is concerned, you will notice more chatter in your work if your spindle isn’t properly squared/trammed. I used to have the DeWalt DW660 and I’m positive it had a load of runout, but I still was able to get decent edge quality in my cuts because I used the right cutters, did the stiffening mod, had air assist, and the spindle had just enough torque.
Speaking of air assist, I just hooked up a 24v 1/4" npt solenoid valve so when the spindle turns on, the airblast will come on too. Heres a very short video:
I’ve just started again, but when replacing the mill bit I noticed the motor squeaked eeeever so slightly when I turned the spindle. No grinding, i.e. no busted bearing ball or wheel, but I’m pretty sure the front spindle bearing either got slightly deformed or the seal got pinched when it decided to just careen into the material at 4mm depth yesterday evening (which is what broke the bit)
Seeing as the 24V spindle only has fixed bearings, that might spell the end for this spindle. Anyone had any luck replacing the bearings on that spindle?
I’m still cutting though, it seems to have zero runout and doesn’t make any different noise during operation so I’m hoping it’s just the seal, but eh. I might be looking at a new spindle a little bit sooner than expected.
Funny thing is; even if I have to replace the spindle and even though I busted a bit, it’s still significantly cheaper to do this myself than to order the milled parts 
I love the x-carve; it’s exactly what I signed up for (i.e. a desktop milling machine but without the week+ of construction and setup and horrible software). Just plug and play.
You may be hearing brushes squeaking. They will do that when you turn a brushed DC motor slowly.
Dave
Sorry to bring this back from the grave, but you suggest using TiAlN but all the end mills I’m finding say that those aren’t compatible with milling non ferrous metals. One manufacturer actually suggested AlTiN as it’s meant for dry milling AL.
Sorry if I’m misunderstanding something, new to this whole process.
The Destiny Viper end mills are hands down the best end mills I have used to date for dry aluminum milling. Their 3 flute end mills are great for dry milling and once you have your feeds and speeds dialed in for your given setup, they work great. As far as the coatings go. "AlTiN is pretty much the last coating you’d want to use when machining aluminum. Not only is the PVD coating too coarse, but the aluminum content will react with the workpiece material. Aluminum is much more likely to stick to AlTiN than TiN, ZrN, DLC, or uncoated carbide. ". Any coating with aluminum as the primary agent is going to stcik to any sort of aluminum you try to mill. Give one of the Destiny end mills a try and see how you like it.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-8-carbide-endmill-aluminum-milling-coated-3-flute-Destiny-Tool-V30805S-/152145181058?hash=item236c8f3982
2 Likes