Water cooled spindle

X-Carve Parts & Files
1

2 part question actually 1) how many continuous hours does the x carve spindle work. 2) Can you use a water cooled spindle with the x carve?
Cheers
Bob
PS love the machine, cant wait to order one :smile:

2

@Zach_Kaplan and @BartDring mentioned in another thread that they actually have a water cooled spindle on one of their machine at Inventables. They mentioned this link at one point, Water Cooled VFD Spindle.

3

  1. I assume you are talking about the 24VDC spindle. It is designed for a life of a couple hundred hours. This is similar brand name router motors.

  2. I have a lot of experience with water cooled spindles and we have a 0.8kW one on a 1000mm X-Carve. 0.8kW is plenty for a machine like the X-Carve. We just use a water bucket and pond pump for cooling. The setup for these spindle is quite complicated and not for the total newbie.

4

I think a water cooled spindle will be one of my first upgrades I do to my machine. It will probably be because the stock spindle will become under powered for my needs, but until then I’m sure the stock spindle will be sufficient!

5

Zach Kaplan linked to a 1.5k spindle. I asked about weight and was told you are running a water-cooled spindle in your shop - implying weight wasn’t an issue. So I ordered one. (it’s on the FEDEX truck for delivery today). Apparently a lot of other people did too - that spindle/vfd combo is now sold out on Amazon.

Now you’re saying you’re using a .8kw spindle in the shop.
Please tell me there is another X-Carve in your lab, and it is running a 1.5kw spindle.

6

@JoeMeyer. I can’t find that link. Can you add it to this thread. Some 1.5kW and 0.8kW have share the same housing.

We do not have a 1.5kW unit in our shop. By “plenty” I meant the 0.8kW has enough power.

7

See here for link ^^

8

That is bigger than we have used. Our spindle is 65mm diameter. Our VFD is 110VAC input too.

Where is the original post from Zach?

9

oh, that is the link that @Zach_Kaplan supplied (From THIS post).

10

I spent $270 on a spindle that he linked to. I spent another $45 on a mount for it. I spent 4 hours in my workshop yesterday shaving that mount down in size, and drilling the holes necessary to mount it. If I find out today that it’s wrong then I’m going to be one of the loudest most obnoxious disgruntled customers you have ever seen in your life.

He posted it here: Spindle stopped working today mid-project - #10 by AaronMatthews
And he reposted it here without the links: Spindle stopped working today mid-project - #10 by AaronMatthews

11

I don’t know why it wouldn’t work, as long as the spindle itself works and you can mount it well it should be all good.

In all honestly you could mount a can of squeeze cheese to your machine, and if you want to make leaning towers of cheeza, you’d be off to the races!

12

Because it is heavy. The standard “quiet and powerful” 24V 300W spindle that started this rodeo weighs in at 1lb 13oz - including the mount/backplate.

The mount for an 80mm wide spindle weighed 3 pounds. When I got done shaving it down to size, it weighs 2 pounds 2 ounces. I haven’t even mounted the spindle and it’s 50% heavier. The spindle weighs 6-8 pounds.

13

Some of those routers people put on their machines look pretty heavy and they seems to work well. Anyways good luck! I’ll be interested to see how yours turns out since I would want to do the 1.5kW spindle in the future.

14

Well it arrived. It wasn’t 6-8 pounds.
It is 9 pounds 1 ounce.
That’s a total of 11 pounds 3 ounces.
Without the water.

15

That’s a beast! Do you have NEMA 23 steppers?

16

Yes, in fact I have stronger ones than come with the kit.
But it doesn’t mean diddly, or squat.
Because with just the spindle installed on the X-Carve, and stationed in the middle of the table equidistant from both ends, the two makerslides that form the gantry sag in the middle.
3/32nd of an inch.
That’s .09375"
2.38mm.

And it twists forward. I don’t have any way of measuring that without hunting down my protractor but the back top edge moves forward just under 1/16th of an inch.

17

That’s crazy, I wouldn’t think 12lbs would sag two makerslides over 1000mm.

18

Feel free to try it. Surely you can find a couple of 5 pound bags of sugar or flour in your cupboard. Just plop them down on top of your spindle and see what happens.

19

I made a mistake. I linked to the wrong one. I am sorry @JoeMeyer. We will cover the costs for that spindle you bought and send you one that is like the one we bought or the Dewalt 611 and the new mount when it comes in.

If you just want to be done we can also offer you a 100% refund on the machine. This is 100% my fault not yours.

1 Like
20

Had an engineer at my company do a quick analysis of a 1000mm maker slide (2 maker slides, back to back). With 15 lbs point load at the dead center, the rail should only deflect 0.0723mm (0.003in) which seems very reasonably.

4371a30bdadd149b291ba5c5af05f2146c7e1edc7c79.jpg1577×740

1 Like