I think I’m hearing it. I decided to level the board again, this time starting a little farther out (I had problems leveling the board once before, but had a solid 24x24 cut level work area).
So it goes out to the center of the board, which is almost .125 lower at this point…so it’s cutting air for the first 30 minutes.
I start to hear the grind like the bit is chattering on wood…but it’s still cutting air.
Wondering if it’ll be time to upgrade…even though I can’t really afford a 611, spindle, and figure out how to do the X strengthening mods.
Let’s start taking bets on how long it’ll last. Will it make it through the board leveling?
I just had my spindle “die” on me yesterday. When the machine was about 2 minutes into a project, I could hear a definitive drop in RPMs. So I quit the project and shut the spindle off…when tried to turn it back on via the switch on the power supply, it wouldn’t turn without tapping the spindle, and even then, it wasn’t anywhere close to it’s normal RPMs. I emailed customer support for a replacement spindle, and they said they are out of the 300W spindles with a backorder of about a week. I don’t have the $$ to upgrade yet, so I guess I’ll design some projects while I wait.
FYI - When mine died, my Dremel rotary tool slid perfectly into the spindle holder and it carved 1000 times better than the stock spindle. I almost did not upgrade after that… but I had a big router laying round, so I ordered a mount for it instead. The Dremel was pretty capable though. Pop your spindle out - and try your dremel if you have one laying around. If not, can you pick one up for $30. Plus, they are awesome for cleaning up your carvings afterwards with sanding wheels, abrasive disks, etc. and I use a cut off wheel to cut the tabs in pieces I cut out of larger stock (not sure if there is such a thing as tabs in Easel). Plus, you’ll get 30,000 rpms instead of (maybe) 10k.
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