Matthew - The stock spindle might not have the mass, stability and horsepower to go any faster. BUT - If you have a Dremel laying around, mine fit into the stock spindle mount and cuts nicely. I was cutting at 3mm depth and 5m/m in birch plywood. I am accustomed to much more aggressive feeds and speeds because my old machine used a big Hitachi router. Initially I put a plug inline with the stock spindle so I could swap them out (Dremel can only take 1/8" bits). My new plan is a 600watt 110vdc spindle now that I have reinforced my machine - but I canāt comment on that yet because the power supply just arrived.
Still waiting down
cheers guys
Cut out a 4 notched pot hanger tonight ,took 1 1/2 hours to cut out 25mm rough saw pine. was using a two flue 1/8 bit, was very conservative 0.5mm depth per pass, 750mm/min feed plunge of 1m/min kinda like @sketch42 with his ply. Result very clean.
I did however have a jump on the y axis belt on the first pass, got stuck momentarily and jumped a mm. i have noticed that on start up tonight zeroing to my work piece both x and y axis were sticky. possibly adjust belts or make sure v wheels are not to tight and look at a touch more current to motors, all though its getting bloody cold here in new zealand took a while for the computer to fire up.
May look into upgrading spindle at a later date.
Yes, it was pretty cold in the garage last night and Iām not as far south as you are @MatthewHubbardā¦ and it is supposed to be about as cold tonight.
Glad to hear it came out pretty clean. I have an interesting but effective way of calibrating the belts and making sure stuff is square and true, so next time you are in Auckland, you should stop by and weāll compare notes. Or if you are keen, DM me and Iāll send you my phone number.
Hopefully after your tweaks, it will be smooth sailing for a while.
Think looping the spindle wires thru one of those ferrite donuts would help? Iāve been considering that for my limit switch wires when I finally get to building mineā¦
@RichardRemski - It certainly wouldnāt hurt anything to try that, and it has to help somewhat. I was wondering the same thing, and even thought about getting some shielded wire and rewiring my router, or maybe get some foil tape like they use for heating vents and covering the wire with that then covering that with some electrical tape just to cover the foil. For the switches, I think shielded cable and maybe a circuit to act as a low-pass filter would be the ticket.
Foil is good for hats, you know, to stop the aliens probing etc. But if you foil, ensure it is grounded to a common ground or it can cause more problems.
@IanWatkins - When you say ācommon groundā, you mean I should talk to it a bit and find things we both can agree on? Sounds like a good plan. I always like to get my expectations out there early. It saves a lot of frustration.
But seriously, good point. I did the same thing with the drain on my shielded wires for the motors. Grounded them to common on the controller end, and nowhere else.
Come on, you know itās always good to talk.
Yes, common ground is a shared ground between all components to mitigate ground loops which is the most common cause of noise on twitching low voltage kit. Or so my Dad always says, even when a carb is blocked.