Hello - I’m ready to bite the bullet on the Fully Loaded X-Carve. I already have a Bosch Colt in my tool arsenal. Does the integrated spindle have advantages over the Bosch Colt? I’d like to use what I already have but if the integrated spindle is going to be more beneficial - I’ll go with that. Thanks, Zak
The Boach Colt is A 5amp 1 hp spindle. That is more powerful than the integrated spindle option. If you already have it I’d use it. The one thing to keep in mind is you will be doing a manual “spindle on” because it is AC. In Easel we have a prompt in the walk through that reminds you to turn on the spindle so you don’t accidentally start the job with the spindle off.
Also some people have wired in a Power Tail. It is the easiest way to control the on/off on an AC spindle with grbl. It just looks for a digital signal from an Arduino and grbl 0.8 and 0.9 has this built in.
We tested a sample we bought. It took about 5 minutes to hook it up for the first time. We hope to carry it in the future but you can find them online in the meantime if you want the use the digital start feature rather than pressing the “on” button on your router.
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Would the installation process outlined in the below link be essentially the same for the X-Carve…?
Wiring would be exactly the same, unless you’ve swapped pins 11 and 12 so you can use PWM spindle speed control, but if you’re using a tail to turn your spindle on/off then you have no need to be swapping pins.
I’ll be using one of these on the coolant pin to control my shop vac.
Beware.
The Bosch Colt will not like being switched on for a period of more than 10 minutes. Heat will bend the shaft and after that the bit will turn in a circle which causes the bit to come loose.