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Hey guys and girls.
I work for EKWB which provides cooling equipment for PC cooling and we are looking to produce a waterblock for the control board which will be part of a full loop including the spindle (if watercooled). This will consist of a block,pump and radiator/fan combo with all the fittings and tube required.
We are also looking at water jackets for the steppers.
What this post is for is to judge whether this is something that XC users would desire? We would like to develop for the XC and other machines but only if the community wants it!
Ah yes, EK, out of Slovenia, right? I’ve purchased some of your GPU water blocks in the past. Honestly, I don’t really see why any of those components would need that kind of cooling, and sound is of almost no concern when your machine, properly functioning, is screaming loud. Since these are budget machines most people run commercially available air cooled routers, which would not have benefit from liquid cooling. X-carves use belts which is fairly easy on stepper motors and heat. Usually screw drive machines have much more load on their steppers, but since the x-controller is only 24V, I don’t really think heat is going to cause any issues with these machines, regardless. More advanced water cooled spindles usually come contained with their own pump and radiators. The cheap Chinese ones usually require a pump but most people buy the cheap harbor freight one.
Most controller/PSU/stepper motors should be configured to work fine temp.wise with ambient air flow.
I dont think there is a large market for controller/stepper cooling.
Perhaps for smaller generic systems using Polulu A4899 / DRV8825 stepper drivers could benefit, raising the practical current rating. These are also a high volume market.
Another thought is making a flood-kit, a closed loop system flooding the material to be carved. (Mainly for alminium carving) ?
Where I’d like it, and maybe my ignorance is showing here in how a water cool system works, is cooling the X Controller instead of the fan pulling air through. I do pretty well with dust control in general in my shop but opened that thing up to find waaaaaay more sawdust than expected.
