So in late 2018, after 6 months of research and design, I built myself a CNC from scratch - just to see if I can do it. I was on a tight budget, but the idea was to get myself going, then build a "version 2" based on lessons learnt. This was the spindle I opted for. To say was disappointed by the spindle is an understatement! I could never get it to cut at any sort of decent feed speeds - so much so that a simple cut took HOURS to complete. There was always LOADS of smoke coming from the end mill, I could hardly cut at a 1mm depth, and I was always left with a burnt edges when I was done. My end mills got super hot, and were blackened and tarnished when cutting MDF (melting resin?). My last cut almost destroyed my CNC - the spindle got dragged "into" the stock from a 1mm depth of cut, and ended up going through the 16mm MDF I was cutting, and 8mm into the MDF waste board, before the 3mm end mill finally gave up and broke!
Hehehe, I had a very similar thing happen as well. Set the nice, new, 2.2kw spindle for a nice light cut in some aluminum - and was horrified by the awful cutting! One wire round the wrong way.
Update: Upgraded my 500W spindle to a 1500W water cooled spindle. Chalk and cheese. I’m running 5 times the feed rates I used to with the 500W. Most impressive thing is the runout on the new one. Or rather, the lack of runout. Those rubber bushings on the 500W really is a bit of a problem.
Background: I'm a machinist by trade for over two decades and I bought one of those spindles a few years ago for a small CNC I built. Critique: The spindle does indeed SEEM pretty nice for the money. Honestly, the design is sooo close to being useful but it has one Achilles heel which makes it a deal-breaker. Having said that, I commend them on designing this spindle to be 1) simple to implement with the DC power input 2) nice choice on the ER collet - it is precise enough, easy to buy/replace collets, grips all sizes in the full range with just a handful of collets and is easy on the wallet 3) the overall size is compact for the power 4) it's relatively quite low-volume. The major deal-breaker problem with these spindles is the bearing arrangement and assembly (which necessitates a tear-down to discover). They nest in a RUBBER boot on either end, which works well until it experiences side OR end forces. The runout is good if you just stick a gauge up against it, but if you push against it sideways, the rubber gives and you discover it's not difficult to compress the rubber and move it .02" to .03" (.04" to .06" TIR)! Also, the bearings are just common roller bearings so it also doesn't take end pressure well either. It needs a pair of angular contact bearings on the nose end and a single roller on the tail end, and those need to be firmly mounted in the metal housing rather than gently nestled in rubber. This bearing thing is likely the cause of the rough finish in the video example. (I'm not talking about the fuzz, I can see chatter on the side walls) To be sure, this spindle is tons better than a Dremel. It's just a shame that they got sooo close to having a KILLER spindle but didn't take it over the goal line with a more secure, accurate bearing arrangement. Since the rubber bearing seat also contributes to the low noise, I suspect that these were designed to make a good first impression and get you to keep them past the return date maybe. That's the pity of it - it didn't have to. It's got everything you'd need from an inexpensive spindle EXCEPT it doesn't quite do the business for one singular flaw, which could be engineered away for less than an additional $10 selling price. D'oh !
@yam ros1 I haven't found anything as "tidy", but if I was gonna buy rather than make my own, I'd probably go for a spindle like this one maybe: www.ebay.com/itm/264083321008 and power it via pulleys with really any kind of DC motor you wanted (since variable speed of DC motors is relatively easy and cheap to do). Keep in mind I'm just kinda guessing as I've never used one of these so I don't know if they are built well or not, but the design is MUCH better for a CNC machine in theory. I would do a little simple math to decide what RPM range you desire (personally I'd go with like 500-4000 for useful machining of metals with mills/drills in this size) and pick pulleys and a motor with the rpm needed to accomplish this. You could go with a 3000-ish rpm motor and pulley it 1:1 for simplicity. This would be a bit heavier, but would also be much more appropriate for milling. If you're routing or engraving rather than milling, one of the air or water-cooled high speed spindles (~25,000 rpm) from eBay or the like would be good, but they require a VFD. If you want that kind of high rpm, the type of spindle I linked can be run around 8K rpm I think but maybe not as fast as those fancy ones. It's never perfect, is it?
@@klave8511 First I should say that my experience with this spindle was several years back and for all I know, they've improved the design, but I strongly doubt they've done this. If a teardown reveals that I'm wrong, then PLEASE correct me! Otherwise... Replacing the bearings themselves is super simple, but the bearings themselves aren't the technical problem. To solve it requires an improved bearing CONFIGURATION. Specifically, this one has two problems. 1) Being mounted in a rubber sleeve causes a radial rigidity flaw and to change that requires that the rubber be eliminated and the bearings be mounted directly to the end bells of the motor. This could be done but probably require you turn the bearing seat to size (to precisely fit the replacement bearing) in a lathe. Not a big deal, but requires a lathe and enough skill to achieve the appropriate tolerance. 2) you need opposing angular contact bearings to solve the axial rigidity flaw. This might be solved by single angular contact bearings oriented in an opposing orientation, one on each end. This would bring in some axial stability but not in an ideal fashion, though maybe better than nuthin'. The ideal arrangement is for the opposing pair to be back-to-back because that minimizes the inevitable wandering of the pre-load due to heat increasing during motor operation. i.e. if the distance between the opposing pair is 5 inches, the expansion due to heat being "so much per inch" is magnified over the whole length while a back-to-back arrangement drops that down to almost nothing.A back-to-back arrangement also necessitates a third "standard" bearing at the tail end of the spindle and I don't know if there's room for all three (or sometimes four) bearings compared to the original two without major modifications (new end bells from scratch). In summary, a guy could try, but you might mentally prepare for it to not work and be for naught in the end. The easy try would be to turn the end bell bearing seats to accept angular contact bearings of whatever size you research and find to suit, then arrange one bearing on either end and tweak the adjustment as you go until you find an acceptable compromise. This means it will run significantly different depending on whether it's been sitting cold or been spinning and warming up, but might work with a bit of preparatory warm-up or some such. This saves space and might fit. Any more extensive modification negates the benefits of the original cheap cost and IMO it would certainly be more worth it to just buy a better designed spindle for two or three times the money than to spend a week figuring out & machining in addition to the cost of the new bearings. ...OR... the companies selling these spindles could do a week of designing themselves and nail a gem of a cheap ideal spindle that they can sell to us for maybe $20 more. These cheap ones have been available unchanged for several years though so the chances of redirecting the existing momentum is probably pretty slim on that score. I'll repeat that these little spindles do function several times better than a Dremel does, so if your machine is a small one made to move a Dremel around to do stuff, then these little ones would be a vast improvement as-is.
I’ve been using one of these spindles for almost two years and it has never let me down. I’ve used it on oak, mahogany, beech, walnut and ash as well as ply and mdf without any hassle. It’s even milled aluminium with no sweat.
Super John. Can I ask you if I could use in this mashine Gripping Range 8-10 mm? I would like to make wooden stairs based on CNC self-made mashine and I wonder if it could fit my needs. The main material is oak and maximum depth I need to make is 20 mm. Thank you for your help-)
I'm blown away by such a great review! No where on UA-cam have I seen a master measure the temperature and decibels of an instrument being put up for review. Respect to you!!! Greetings from Russia.
For $80 bucks, what would you all expect? Remember, this is run on a 3d printed router using conduit. Fair assessment and mentioned he was not paid for the review. Nice job! Agree with others, wrong bit, and who knows what the stepover was. Good entry level spindle.
Thanks for the video. I have 2 of the MPCNC machines a 20x20 and a 20x40 and have been using them for just about 3 years now. Best i can tell from this video the quality of cut issue you are having is 100% the bit your using. Wile i see others have mentioned the up cut vs down cut issue that is not really the issue here. that bit your using is what is also known as a zipbit and is intended for use in a hand held trim router for quick rough cutouts in material such as sheet rock. it also has a rounded tip much like but not equal to a ball nose endmill and this is why you are leaving tool marks in the flat cut areas. look on amazon for whiteside router bits they have a really nice starter set of true cnc endmills that will yield you much better results. again thanks for the video and good luck with your MPCNC they are great machines for the money.
I bought this spindle. It runs very smoothly. What I found was that the chuck assembly was just bolted on and the runout was too much so I mounted the motor in my chuck and reground the spindle in situ with a tool post grinder. Very quiet and well made.
It's not bad motor, I use it for 3 years now and still works perfectly, only is not very powerful if you want to aluminum or brass, but at slower feed it still gets the job done..
To minimise the edges fraying, a straight flute bit is probably the best compromise. You could always try a downcut bit for the first few passes then finish off with an upcut bit - this will minimise fraying on the bottom edges and help clear the cuttings on deep cuts.
Wow, I didn't realize there are specific standards that must be strictly followed in order to make a video. I enjoy your videos and they are helping me out a lot understanding my first jump into cnc. Thanks for the info.
Glad to see this review. I have a large 4x4 CNC router with a 2.2kw water cooled spindle, but also have one of those small 3040 CNC routers you see on Ebay (mine came with a 300w spindle). I have been considering upgrading to the 500w spindle, and from your video, it does appear to have significantly more power. Pine wood almost always has tearout. You can buy more expensive "downcut" router bits that will help with this, or I actually use the cheap diamond pattern carbide bits you can buy in 10 packs on Ebay. Your milling mark lines may be caused by too great a stepover in your programming, an out of tram condition on your spindle mount (spindle is not perfectly perpendicular) , or may result if you are using a ball nose bit instead of a flat bottomed cutter. Flat bottomed cutters should have a 30-40% stepover, ball nose bits 10-20% stepover. Roughing passes can have larger stepover, but full width cuts put lots of strain on those small bits so keep that in mind.
I upgraded my 3040T with this spindle a year ago and I'm very pleased with it. It's so much stronger now but at the same time much less noisy. I even managed to squeeze that power supply into the control box on top of all the other crap. I have the parallel port controller which is the next upgrade candidate.
I ran one of these cheap spindles for about 2 years and it worked great at first. Eventually the bearings went kaput and the runout got excessive resulting in ear-splitting chatter no matter what bit I was using. Also, the press-on plastic fan eventually came loose from the shaft after extended periods of running (heat). A drop of 5-minute epoxy held it on for awhile. Eventually took it off and put the loud route back on. I guess you get what you pay for.
This spindle has only one ball bearing. Normally spindle has angular contact bearings and total 4 bearings to bear cutting backforce. If you open it, you will know this is just modified hand blender.
I'd use an engraving end mill for engraving plywood. Smoother cut, much less chip lift so less splintering, faster max feed rate. If it leaves facing marks on the facing cuts, it means your spindle is out of plum (square, tram, aka not perpendicular to the material). I'm a newb so your mileage will vary.
This Banggood spindle is more like 300W and some of this is heat! It was successful running a 3.175mm bit in soft wood, but it suffers from being under-powered when using a 6.25mm end mill in hard wood. I had to use the most modest of federates and depths of cut of 1mm. When you see "500W", consider of who is making the claim.
The milling marks can be an indication of the bit not being perpendicular to the work. Make sure you check that, otherwise you'll bite off more than you can chew when you do a slot. If that doesn't fix it you can increase the stepover. You can clean up the fuzzies by using a downcut or a finishing pass or just better bits. It's not really worth chasing too much because 5minutes of post work will clean it up. The V1Engineering forums are great for this kind of info (I have about 5k replies there).
if you use a downcut bit you won't get the only ripping on the top, but you will need a decent air assist as a downcut bit will not clear the chippings very well.
I recently purchased a Kress 1050FME 240VAC spindle motor form eBay which turned out to be faulty, hence my interest in your demo of the Chinese spindle. Now that I have got my money back on the faulty Kress I am considering purchasing a Banggood unit since it is roughly 1/6th of the price of a new Kress unit. Your demo and information was usefull but lacked a few points. 1. How does the provided motor clamp attach to the main machine Z-axis? 2. The effective power of the Kress 1050 is 600Watts. Did you measure the wattage consumption (under load) of the Banggood unit? 3. What is the motor torque like at low speeds? 4. It would have been a good idea to test it with the larger dia cutters to see how the machine behaved under higher loads. Thanks.
there is so much you can do with this set up! and you should always leave some extra material on the face you want to finish up to be polished and all sparkly
A note on the collets, You NEVER use a larger bit on a smaller collet. this will damage the collet. You can use a smaller bit on a larger collet, but not too small.
Thanks Bob, you got it in less than a month, that's great. less noisy sounds good too, now you can have some fun making stuff with it. It looks like you can run endmills a little larger than 1/4" with the collet set, I wonder if you can tighten a bit in it without a collet. Thanks I hope you will enjoy the cnc for many years to come.
Just a heads up, these are on sale for $53 right now at Banggood, about half the price of other places I have been looking. Picked one up since it was so cheap just to try it out for smaller jobs. Just had a baby so the quieter spindle makes it easier to sneak off to the garage and do some cutting :)
Very Good job on the video. Looking at the finish carving and it looks like the spindle is mounted a little off square. Which is what makes the lines show up on the flat area. Great job.
Those spindles are good only for hobby where you want to take your time with your work. You have to be really careful not to go to fast with it with a bigger cutter because it will bend the shaft holding the colet (not fixable). It has a 8mm shaft on skater bearings. Mine gave away after about a 3 months because the winding wires came loos from vibrations.
That power supply looks pretty wimpy. My experience with Chinese power supplies has been that you need to double the wattage you expect to use. Do you still have this setup running? Curious how it held up?
Great spindle! I was really impressed with how quiet it is, and the price is great. Just what I was looking for! Thanks for the review! I noticed they have a deal to add the collet set.
he got lucky on the quiet end i assure you they are not all that quiet. mine is much louder, quieter than the piece of crap that came with my 3018 but loud. However i can hit 14k on mine and i wonder if its because i dont run the potentiometer and insted i run mine off the variable 0-5v power on the board for speed control. in addition i ran a second e-stop switch to the power leads. i have the 2 estop switches side by side and its just an extra added measure of safety.
The microphone on your phone is at the bottom, you should hold the phone by the sides and point the bottom towards the spindle. You should measure run-out of the tool in the spindle. Really, you should wait till you have more collet inserts as 3.125mm is too small for a spindle which runs at that speed. Running with a 6mm+ will improve your edge finish but load the spindle more. Check that your spindle is perpendicular to the X and Y axis of travel.
the fuzz is from an upcut bit. you need a 2 flute downcut bit to get clean edges. the cut lines in the bottom means the spindle is out of tram. i run this spindle with an 1/8" upcut/downcut bit all the time and get perfectly smooth surfaces up to mu largest bit which is a .92 inch surfacing bit. In addition you can sometimes get more speed out of it by taking the pot off and hooking it up to the 0-5v variable power on the control board. this allows you to control the speed from the machine itself. there is a 0-5v lead which connects to the center terminal. and a ground and that connects to the right terminal and the left terminal is empty on the power supply. i have a schematic which shows it for the ProVer board but most control boards have a 0-5 v port.
If it was not for the low rpm speed (compared to a dremel type tool) I think I would buy one of these and use it for a dremel tool! Two and a half times the power and super quite compared to the dremel!
A Dremel is 75W. When I measured my "500W" spindle I could never get it to draw more than 100W even loaded down. So they're 500 Chinese Watts not western Watts. Chinese Watts are obviously a lot smaller than our Watts are. But inflating specs is typical. I have a 600W Bosch router and it is really 600W. It is way more powerful than these air cooled spindles are. Easy 6 times. Turn that router on and it'll twist your wrist.
A bunch of vibrations? Lousy? For a printed CNC machine running a cheap Chinese spindle this is pretty dam good. Of course it's not going to be a Tormach 440...
I've built a couple of spindles for my CNC milling machine but I needed one with a little more power so I bought this one. I found the spindle was out about .002" TIR so I mounted in my chuck and steady rest and reground the chuck with my tool post grinder in situ. I got it down to about 2 or 3 tenths. I haven't used it much yet so I can't comment on how well it will hold up.
You're bonkers.....that .002" is quite acceptable for any material or machine this spindle could be used on. It's probably aimed at the 3018 type router for an upgrade and that machine will not touch metal EVER so going to the lengths of regrinding the chuck is a total waste of time. BTW, any run out on a cutter will just make the cutter appear that much bigger in diam, and .002" runout is nothing to get excited about.
@@gangleweed Actually no. I've had ample time to use this spindle now on my CNC lathe. Within its working range it is very good. Mine never gets hot but, again, I don't push it. Cutters mounted in the spindle are accurate, at the cutter to 0.0004 +/- a couple of tenths. I also like how smooth and quite it is. 0.002 is not good enough, many times I take small depth cuts with 0.0625 or smaller cutters. If a spindle is off you get ridges after each pass. I don't get that.
@@mosfet500 lol.....I just have to chuckle at all those people who buy these cheap spindles from B'good et al and think they are getting super precision in the tenths of a thou range.........they are intended to give more cutting capability for cheap routers like the 3018 type with bearings that are not super precision and after a few hours of running they will be even less so. Coupled to that the ER 11 chucks and collets supplied with these motors are nothing to write home about, certainly not super precision but more in the adequate class, so stop kidding yourselves. As I always put my money where my mouth is, I have just " invested" in one of these spindles packages with the aluminium mounting and a power supply too as I have a purpose I want to pursue.
@@gangleweed The thing about them is that they, as I have done, be improved. I ground the ER16 (not ER11) chuck to 0.0002" in situ and it's still dead on so the bearing, as of this writing, are fine. I changed the collet to Techniks, a Chinese collet with very good TIR. You can get any bearings you want, you can put ABEC 7 Fafnir bearings in if you like. This is basically a good spindle for the price and used within its design range very capable. Sure it's not HAAS but it's not $1k either.
Excellent video! Thanks for the share. I have been struggling with my cheap version of a Dremel and was thinking of trying a different one. I like the low noise and the torque of this spindle. Not sure how it compares with the Makita RT0701 router which does make a loud noise. Hey btw, the Bangood discount code has expired, any chance of getting a new one?
The first thing that plastic fan on the end of the spindle reminds me of, is some motors I've pulled from household appliances in the past. It looks JUST like a motor pulled fro ma vaccuum with an er16 collet added on lol!! Id also love to see how it handles aluminum/brass with say a rough 4 flute end mill
Which filament did you use for the spindle mount? I've heard some say that PLA will warp from the heat from this motor but the temp you had there didn't seem that high. If you did use PLA how does it perform?
Thanks for the video, its always very interesting to see what you are playing with. Do you think any type of air assist at the tip of the bit would produce a much finer and cleaner cut, it would push the debris away and at the same time it could assist in keeping the tip at a cooler operating temperature, I come from a laser cutting background using a cnc laser engraver (blue diode) 8.5 watts of extreme power when focused correctly and we have in our community developed what we call an air assist unit, Its normally based on a Hailea AC0 328 Pond air pump which pushes out 80 litres of air a minutes and using fine copper tubing 2/3mm bore we direct this to the focal point of the laser, this allows the laser to cut a lot cleaner on wood , less charring and a much more fine style of cut can be achieved, I was wondering if the system could be adapted for this use, I dont have a mill at the moment as my cnc is all laser but I am thinking of purchasing wood CNC router and either a DIY system or a kit, not sure at the moment as there are so many options and to be frank i am not sure where or how to start. I am not looking for a huge footprint, my laser is 400/600 mm and I find this is plenty big enough for what I want to achieve. I am not looking to mill metals and I am not ready to go down the 4th Axis route yet. For me 3 axis is plenty to get my head around.....Many thanks Neil
I wonder if they sell the spindle for cheaper without the bracket? That bracket is huge! Or without the controller. Just give it 100 volts dc without variable speed? 11000rpm isn't something I'd slow down. I made a video on my high voltage dc power supply that was cheap: I could add 3 more ports for 100 vdc!
First, do not try to fit a 1/8" bit into a 3mm collet. you can damage the spindle. You must always use a smaller bit than the ER collet size! Regarding the spindles. these are nice and quiet and maybe ok for milling a PCB or some softwood but they do not have angular contact bearings and there is axial slop that can never be fixed. This is due to using deep groove roller bearings which are not designed for axial loads for milling. They can take some axial loads however the slop will cause massive chatter. They also do not have the runout tolerances you'd want to ideally have. You can mill aluminum with them but you will not be able to properly use your bits and likely will be doing more rubbing than cutting. I wish it were not the case but there is no shortcut here for cost savings.
Great Vid, U might consider using a V bit to remove the burrs in a finishing or profile cut, not quite so sure about the lines yet BUT keep em coming, meant to ask what type of 3D Printer would u recommend for a beginner?
Thanks for your input. The Creality CR10S is what I use and love it. It took only about 20 minutes to get it up and running and I never have to tinker with it like the older 3D printers I had.
Can you please also make a video to test if the spindle is really worth it by cutting aluminium. I would appreciate if you can do that as it seems to be a good deal, thanks in advance.
Thanks for this video series on the MPCNC. I'm researching and collecting parts for my build. This spindle has a brushed motor. Brush wear is a problem. Brushless spindle motors can be found for a little more money but should last a great deal longer. How much runout does it have, what type of bearings and how much actual power is it using?
I don't know the internal details of the spindle. I haven't done much with the machine since building it, but I plan on using it here in the near future.
You did not mount the tool in the collet correctly. The collet (of which you got only one, the 3.175 mm one) snaps into the ER11 nut with a small ridge at the top of the collet. Once you snap the collet into the black ER11 nut you can insert the tool/bit. And then thread everything into/on the spindle.
Excellent video! I congratulate you on the project you carried out. coincidentally I am moving forward with the same project and in this regard I wanted to consult you the following: -Is the speed controller of the spondel strictly necessary? -What milling cutter do you recommend for acrylic and metal sheets? From now I thank you. and continue with your videos that are very good !!!!
Great video! Were you manually controlling the spindle using the potentiometer or were you able to wire the spindle up to the CNC controller for spindle on/off and speed control?
As a rule of thumb, and of course this is all provisional since these things get made in large quantities, the models up to 1500W seem to be fairly low runouts. Once you get in the 2.2Kw and 3Kw ranges you have a little more runout. Again, this is collated from people all over the place reporting on this sporadically and subject to change as there is quite a few brands and manufacturers at play.
Well done, just a thought do you think the aluminum bracket that came with the spindle might help keep the motor cooler? If that bracket you printed is PLA, how hot does the motor need to get to make it pliable? Just some random thoughts, great job
@@MakingStuff You should be good, I know when you're cutting aluminum the load is significantly greater on the motor, so it's really about what you are cutting and how fast.
Great video. In your opinion, do you think it will drive 1/4 shank bits as well as it did the 1/8 or do you think 1/4 end mill bit would be too much for it? Thanks
IMO it Seems to be mainly from the plywood you used. May want to try using MDF or a higher quality harder wood oak, walnut etc. could also be a little because of the end mill. If it’s for steel then it wouldn’t be as clean on wood.
Making Stuff Ok good. Another tip would be to also adjust the speed of not only the end mill itself, but the movement across the X and Y axis. Maybe slow it down some. If I recall correctly from your video you were using it at max rpm’s and running it at max speed with certain materials could effect the outcome of the piece negatively. Excellent job though and I WISH I had my own CNC machine like yours!
11,400 sounds incredibly slow to me. I have built inverted pin routers for routing out model aircraft kit parts from wood. Going from a standard slow router around 22k to a 32k trim router made an incredible difference. Look for cross fluted carbide burs. Leaving nothing but points, they cut like mad.
The slow rotational speed is my biggest beef with these air cooled spindles.I was running a router on my CNC and the sound was driving me up the wall. So the air cooled spindles being quieter is nice. I think I need new bearings in that router. But with a router you con't have so many collet options for tool shanks like ER11 either.
Thanks for the video. I just ordered 3018 cause I can't afford the large format I really want. What CNC machine you using? Seems to be larger format. Thanks!!
I'm after a spindle/router for my own MPCNC. I'm very inexperienced with this stuff and am just starting out. Those spindles look great for a beginner like me, even if I end up on something "beefier" later on. The mounting arrangement scares me though - there is nothing holding the spindle up, just the friction from the sides. Are there any mounts available that hold it from the bottom?
The mount that came with it was very hard to get off. I had to get a screw driver and pry it open just to remove it. There was just no way to hook it to the MPCNC without having to use 3d printed parts. The 3D printed mounts would probably break before the let the spindle slip. I was more worried about them breaking than slipping. I'm sure if the spindle stopped turning or I took too deep of a cut, something would break on the MPCNC.
What kind of end mill bit are you using... you didn't say what the profile... it sounds a little bit weird to me but with out knowing the bit profile info.. all I see was the size of the bit and that it's an end mill bit... but nothing else about the type of bit.. like how many flute and most importantly the tip style
Did you adjust the small potentiometer on the circuit board to a max voltage? At the moment at full speed I have 120V and the spindle runs hot. Do I have to adjust it to max 100V?
I see that you use Marlin as a milling platform. Can you link the videos regardning using marlin for this milling macine you build. I did the same and i´m usning uno arduino and grbl. But using ramps 1.4 is an awesome platform and the cost is 15 usd for a kit with lcd and shield plus mainoard 2560. I bought 2 sets just in case as they are so versatile. I run my prter wirh marlin 2.0.7 and ramps 1.4 hybrid on 24v. I´d love to see your build for cnc roter and also plasma. I have a cheap cutter lying around. Just havent gotten around to building it. Need to build a garage first...
i did build my own cnc milling machine. I use grblgru as cam module. it is free and powerful. i use arduino uno r3 and grbl shield. But i plan to use mega2560 and ramps 1.4 But you can also use marlin to mill stuff. and use the lcd and jog the machine. I will check out ESTL also. Right now i'm getting to the point where i can use my diy machine, with cutting fluid system and ventialtions systems. it is designied to cut and engrave alumium, at low speeds and high rpm, rather than a regualr milling machine. I will of course mill wood also. I use ballscrews
@8:57 -- you need to use a finishing bit / do a finishing pass. (Or some sandpaper...) [p.s. we can't make comments in the description, only the comments section. XD]
It would be helpful if you chucked up a piece of drill rod and did a runout test on the spindle. All of your tests were subjective observations. Still, good effort as this spindle is probably as precision (or better) than the rest of the CNC machine.
You can get a fairly good idea of the distance from the video. You don't need a super-precise measurement to figure out that it's much quieter than a router.
So in late 2018, after 6 months of research and design, I built myself a CNC from scratch - just to see if I can do it. I was on a tight budget, but the idea was to get myself going, then build a "version 2" based on lessons learnt.
This was the spindle I opted for. To say was disappointed by the spindle is an understatement! I could never get it to cut at any sort of decent feed speeds - so much so that a simple cut took HOURS to complete. There was always LOADS of smoke coming from the end mill, I could hardly cut at a 1mm depth, and I was always left with a burnt edges when I was done. My end mills got super hot, and were blackened and tarnished when cutting MDF (melting resin?). My last cut almost destroyed my CNC - the spindle got dragged "into" the stock from a 1mm depth of cut, and ended up going through the 16mm MDF I was cutting, and 8mm into the MDF waste board, before the 3mm end mill finally gave up and broke!
Hehehe, I had a very similar thing happen as well. Set the nice, new, 2.2kw spindle for a nice light cut in some aluminum - and was horrified by the awful cutting! One wire round the wrong way.
Update: Upgraded my 500W spindle to a 1500W water cooled spindle. Chalk and cheese. I’m running 5 times the feed rates I used to with the 500W. Most impressive thing is the runout on the new one. Or rather, the lack of runout. Those rubber bushings on the 500W really is a bit of a problem.
thank you for sharing this, things one have to keep in mind making a cnc :)
Background: I'm a machinist by trade for over two decades and I bought one of those spindles a few years ago for a small CNC I built.
Critique: The spindle does indeed SEEM pretty nice for the money. Honestly, the design is sooo close to being useful but it has one Achilles heel which makes it a deal-breaker. Having said that, I commend them on designing this spindle to be 1) simple to implement with the DC power input 2) nice choice on the ER collet - it is precise enough, easy to buy/replace collets, grips all sizes in the full range with just a handful of collets and is easy on the wallet 3) the overall size is compact for the power 4) it's relatively quite low-volume.
The major deal-breaker problem with these spindles is the bearing arrangement and assembly (which necessitates a tear-down to discover). They nest in a RUBBER boot on either end, which works well until it experiences side OR end forces. The runout is good if you just stick a gauge up against it, but if you push against it sideways, the rubber gives and you discover it's not difficult to compress the rubber and move it .02" to .03" (.04" to .06" TIR)! Also, the bearings are just common roller bearings so it also doesn't take end pressure well either. It needs a pair of angular contact bearings on the nose end and a single roller on the tail end, and those need to be firmly mounted in the metal housing rather than gently nestled in rubber.
This bearing thing is likely the cause of the rough finish in the video example. (I'm not talking about the fuzz, I can see chatter on the side walls)
To be sure, this spindle is tons better than a Dremel.
It's just a shame that they got sooo close to having a KILLER spindle but didn't take it over the goal line with a more secure, accurate bearing arrangement.
Since the rubber bearing seat also contributes to the low noise, I suspect that these were designed to make a good first impression and get you to keep them past the return date maybe. That's the pity of it - it didn't have to. It's got everything you'd need from an inexpensive spindle EXCEPT it doesn't quite do the business for one singular flaw, which could be engineered away for less than an additional $10 selling price.
D'oh !
@yam ros1 I haven't found anything as "tidy", but if I was gonna buy rather than make my own, I'd probably go for a spindle like this one maybe:
www.ebay.com/itm/264083321008
and power it via pulleys with really any kind of DC motor you wanted (since variable speed of DC motors is relatively easy and cheap to do).
Keep in mind I'm just kinda guessing as I've never used one of these so I don't know if they are built well or not, but the design is MUCH better for a CNC machine in theory.
I would do a little simple math to decide what RPM range you desire (personally I'd go with like 500-4000 for useful machining of metals with mills/drills in this size) and pick pulleys and a motor with the rpm needed to accomplish this. You could go with a 3000-ish rpm motor and pulley it 1:1 for simplicity.
This would be a bit heavier, but would also be much more appropriate for milling.
If you're routing or engraving rather than milling, one of the air or water-cooled high speed spindles (~25,000 rpm) from eBay or the like would be good, but they require a VFD. If you want that kind of high rpm, the type of spindle I linked can be run around 8K rpm I think but maybe not as fast as those fancy ones.
It's never perfect, is it?
It’s such a good deal but that bearing issue is a dealbreaker. Can they be replaced?
@@klave8511 First I should say that my experience with this spindle was several years back and for all I know, they've improved the design, but I strongly doubt they've done this. If a teardown reveals that I'm wrong, then PLEASE correct me!
Otherwise...
Replacing the bearings themselves is super simple, but the bearings themselves aren't the technical problem. To solve it requires an improved bearing CONFIGURATION. Specifically, this one has two problems.
1) Being mounted in a rubber sleeve causes a radial rigidity flaw and to change that requires that the rubber be eliminated and the bearings be mounted directly to the end bells of the motor. This could be done but probably require you turn the bearing seat to size (to precisely fit the replacement bearing) in a lathe. Not a big deal, but requires a lathe and enough skill to achieve the appropriate tolerance.
2) you need opposing angular contact bearings to solve the axial rigidity flaw. This might be solved by single angular contact bearings oriented in an opposing orientation, one on each end. This would bring in some axial stability but not in an ideal fashion, though maybe better than nuthin'. The ideal arrangement is for the opposing pair to be back-to-back because that minimizes the inevitable wandering of the pre-load due to heat increasing during motor operation. i.e. if the distance between the opposing pair is 5 inches, the expansion due to heat being "so much per inch" is magnified over the whole length while a back-to-back arrangement drops that down to almost nothing.A back-to-back arrangement also necessitates a third "standard" bearing at the tail end of the spindle and I don't know if there's room for all three (or sometimes four) bearings compared to the original two without major modifications (new end bells from scratch).
In summary, a guy could try, but you might mentally prepare for it to not work and be for naught in the end. The easy try would be to turn the end bell bearing seats to accept angular contact bearings of whatever size you research and find to suit, then arrange one bearing on either end and tweak the adjustment as you go until you find an acceptable compromise. This means it will run significantly different depending on whether it's been sitting cold or been spinning and warming up, but might work with a bit of preparatory warm-up or some such. This saves space and might fit.
Any more extensive modification negates the benefits of the original cheap cost and IMO it would certainly be more worth it to just buy a better designed spindle for two or three times the money than to spend a week figuring out & machining in addition to the cost of the new bearings.
...OR... the companies selling these spindles could do a week of designing themselves and nail a gem of a cheap ideal spindle that they can sell to us for maybe $20 more. These cheap ones have been available unchanged for several years though so the chances of redirecting the existing momentum is probably pretty slim on that score.
I'll repeat that these little spindles do function several times better than a Dremel does, so if your machine is a small one made to move a Dremel around to do stuff, then these little ones would be a vast improvement as-is.
@@TyroneDamShewlaces Got one for my MPCNC recently and due to severe overheating issues, tore it down and yes the in-rubber bearing is still there XD!
@@ethanchua2335 was the reason you tore it down to fix the heating because the heating caused it to break? Or just improving it?
I’ve been using one of these spindles for almost two years and it has never let me down. I’ve used it on oak, mahogany, beech, walnut and ash as well as ply and mdf without any hassle. It’s even milled aluminium with no sweat.
Super John. Can I ask you if I could use in this mashine Gripping Range 8-10 mm? I would like to make wooden stairs based on CNC self-made mashine and I wonder if it could fit my needs. The main material is oak and maximum depth I need to make is 20 mm. Thank you for your help-)
Cutting Aluminium ? What speed?
@B B I think that is 12 times slower than I cut wood. Is this also a 1/12 factor for you?
@B B what RPM?
@@mariuszszczecina The biggest collet you can get is 7 mm.
I'm blown away by such a great review! No where on UA-cam have I seen a master measure the temperature and decibels of an instrument being put up for review. Respect to you!!!
Greetings from Russia.
Glad you enjoyed it!
For $80 bucks, what would you all expect? Remember, this is run on a 3d printed router using conduit. Fair assessment and mentioned he was not paid for the review. Nice job! Agree with others, wrong bit, and who knows what the stepover was. Good entry level spindle.
Thanks for the video. I have 2 of the MPCNC machines a 20x20 and a 20x40 and have been using them for just about 3 years now. Best i can tell from this video the quality of cut issue you are having is 100% the bit your using. Wile i see others have mentioned the up cut vs down cut issue that is not really the issue here. that bit your using is what is also known as a zipbit and is intended for use in a hand held trim router for quick rough cutouts in material such as sheet rock. it also has a rounded tip much like but not equal to a ball nose endmill and this is why you are leaving tool marks in the flat cut areas. look on amazon for whiteside router bits they have a really nice starter set of true cnc endmills that will yield you much better results. again thanks for the video and good luck with your MPCNC they are great machines for the money.
Thanks for the info. I'll check out those bits on Amazon.
I bought this spindle. It runs very smoothly. What I found was that the chuck assembly was just bolted on and the runout was too much so I mounted the motor in my chuck and reground the spindle in situ with a tool post grinder. Very quiet and well made.
It's not bad motor, I use it for 3 years now and still works perfectly, only is not very powerful if you want to aluminum or brass, but at slower feed it still gets the job done..
To minimise the edges fraying, a straight flute bit is probably the best compromise. You could always try a downcut bit for the first few passes then finish off with an upcut bit - this will minimise fraying on the bottom edges and help clear the cuttings on deep cuts.
I love that spindle. The price is incredible too for all you get. Great inspiring video.
Wow, I didn't realize there are specific standards that must be strictly followed in order to make a video. I enjoy your videos and they are helping me out a lot understanding my first jump into cnc. Thanks for the info.
Glad to see this review. I have a large 4x4 CNC router with a 2.2kw water cooled spindle, but also have one of those small 3040 CNC routers you see on Ebay (mine came with a 300w spindle). I have been considering upgrading to the 500w spindle, and from your video, it does appear to have significantly more power. Pine wood almost always has tearout. You can buy more expensive "downcut" router bits that will help with this, or I actually use the cheap diamond pattern carbide bits you can buy in 10 packs on Ebay. Your milling mark lines may be caused by too great a stepover in your programming, an out of tram condition on your spindle mount (spindle is not perfectly perpendicular) , or may result if you are using a ball nose bit instead of a flat bottomed cutter. Flat bottomed cutters should have a 30-40% stepover, ball nose bits 10-20% stepover. Roughing passes can have larger stepover, but full width cuts put lots of strain on those small bits so keep that in mind.
The software was set to 45% step over. Thanks for the info!
I upgraded my 3040T with this spindle a year ago and I'm very pleased with it. It's so much stronger now but at the same time much less noisy.
I even managed to squeeze that power supply into the control box on top of all the other crap.
I have the parallel port controller which is the next upgrade candidate.
I am considering to upgrade my 3040 cnc to 1500W air cooled spindle to cut aluminium and brass.
@@PerBengtsson if you run decent motion control software a parallel port works fine. You use Mach though right?
@@1pcfred Yes I do
Use a downcut spiral flute router bit for laminated wood. That will limit burrs.
I agree
I ran one of these cheap spindles for about 2 years and it worked great at first. Eventually the bearings went kaput and the runout got excessive resulting in ear-splitting chatter no matter what bit I was using. Also, the press-on plastic fan eventually came loose from the shaft after extended periods of running (heat). A drop of 5-minute epoxy held it on for awhile. Eventually took it off and put the loud route back on. I guess you get what you pay for.
This spindle has only one ball bearing. Normally spindle has angular contact bearings and total 4 bearings to bear cutting backforce. If you open it, you will know this is just modified hand blender.
I'd use an engraving end mill for engraving plywood. Smoother cut, much less chip lift so less splintering, faster max feed rate. If it leaves facing marks on the facing cuts, it means your spindle is out of plum (square, tram, aka not perpendicular to the material). I'm a newb so your mileage will vary.
Thanks for letting us know.
This Banggood spindle is more like 300W and some of this is heat! It was successful running a 3.175mm bit in soft wood, but it suffers from being under-powered when using a 6.25mm end mill in hard wood. I had to use the most modest of federates and depths of cut of 1mm. When you see "500W", consider of who is making the claim.
The milling marks can be an indication of the bit not being perpendicular to the work. Make sure you check that, otherwise you'll bite off more than you can chew when you do a slot. If that doesn't fix it you can increase the stepover. You can clean up the fuzzies by using a downcut or a finishing pass or just better bits. It's not really worth chasing too much because 5minutes of post work will clean it up. The V1Engineering forums are great for this kind of info (I have about 5k replies there).
if you use a downcut bit you won't get the only ripping on the top, but you will need a decent air assist as a downcut bit will not clear the chippings very well.
I recently purchased a Kress 1050FME 240VAC spindle motor form eBay which turned out to be faulty, hence my interest in your demo of the Chinese spindle. Now that I have got my money back on the faulty Kress I am considering purchasing a Banggood unit since it is roughly 1/6th of the price of a new Kress unit.
Your demo and information was usefull but lacked a few points.
1. How does the provided motor clamp attach to the main machine Z-axis?
2. The effective power of the Kress 1050 is 600Watts. Did you measure the wattage consumption (under load) of the Banggood unit?
3. What is the motor torque like at low speeds?
4. It would have been a good idea to test it with the larger dia cutters to see how the machine behaved under higher loads.
Thanks.
you need to use a down spiral bit to not get the fuzz
What's down spiral mean? Does it move the cut material down instead of up?
there is so much you can do with this set up! and you should always leave some extra material on the face you want to finish up to be polished and all sparkly
A note on the collets, You NEVER use a larger bit on a smaller collet. this will damage the collet. You can use a smaller bit on a larger collet, but not too small.
Thanks Bob, you got it in less than a month, that's great. less noisy sounds good too, now you can have some fun making stuff with it. It looks like you can run endmills a little larger than 1/4" with the collet set, I wonder if you can tighten a bit in it without a collet. Thanks I hope you will enjoy the cnc for many years to come.
Thank You. I got an ER11 collet set that goes up to 7mm today. I will definitely be trying some larger bits.
I’d like to see it tackle aluminum and steel.
I think you need a 'down cutting' router bit - I've never used either, but recall it from some distant youtube video.
Amazed at how quiet it is!
Yeah it was an upcut bit. Thanks for the info!
Just a heads up, these are on sale for $53 right now at Banggood, about half the price of other places I have been looking. Picked one up since it was so cheap just to try it out for smaller jobs. Just had a baby so the quieter spindle makes it easier to sneak off to the garage and do some cutting :)
Thanks for letting us know. Banggood does have some good sale prices form time to time.
Very Good job on the video. Looking at the finish carving and it looks like the spindle is mounted a little off square. Which is what makes the lines show up on the flat area. Great job.
Yeah that's the one bad thing about the MPCNC. There's no way to adjust the tool.
@@MakingStuff - It is always possible to adjust by using shims and experimenting.
Those spindles are good only for hobby where you want to take your time with your work. You have to be really careful not to go to fast with it with a bigger cutter because it will bend the shaft holding the colet (not fixable). It has a 8mm shaft on skater bearings. Mine gave away after about a 3 months because the winding wires came loos from vibrations.
justmeemi1988 Would upgrading the bearings up front help?
Thanks for the video. The 3018 is arriving any day and the 500 Watt spindle is waiting..,,
Nice 👍
That power supply looks pretty wimpy. My experience with Chinese power supplies has been that you need to double the wattage you expect to use. Do you still have this setup running? Curious how it held up?
You asked us to leave a comment in the " Description " I will need your password to do that. Nice video. I enjoyed it.
Thx man for the free reviews, im currently totally into CNC machines and you help me alot.
Thanks for watching!
Great spindle! I was really impressed with how quiet it is, and the price is great. Just what I was looking for! Thanks for the review! I noticed they have a deal to add the collet set.
Glad I could help. Thanks for watching!
he got lucky on the quiet end i assure you they are not all that quiet. mine is much louder, quieter than the piece of crap that came with my 3018 but loud. However i can hit 14k on mine and i wonder if its because i dont run the potentiometer and insted i run mine off the variable 0-5v power on the board for speed control. in addition i ran a second e-stop switch to the power leads. i have the 2 estop switches side by side and its just an extra added measure of safety.
That's really quite. And the fuzzy edge may be because of the direction of cutting, conventional vs climb, apart from end mill and spindle quality
most of all, its low sound is a pleasure, I have 40ish db normally
The microphone on your phone is at the bottom, you should hold the phone by the sides and point the bottom towards the spindle.
You should measure run-out of the tool in the spindle.
Really, you should wait till you have more collet inserts as 3.125mm is too small for a spindle which runs at that speed. Running with a 6mm+ will improve your edge finish but load the spindle more.
Check that your spindle is perpendicular to the X and Y axis of travel.
Thanks for the info.
This is great info!! Please please keep up reporting on how the spindle is performing over time. There aren't many videos on spindles!
the fuzz is from an upcut bit. you need a 2 flute downcut bit to get clean edges. the cut lines in the bottom means the spindle is out of tram. i run this spindle with an 1/8" upcut/downcut bit all the time and get perfectly smooth surfaces up to mu largest bit which is a .92 inch surfacing bit. In addition you can sometimes get more speed out of it by taking the pot off and hooking it up to the 0-5v variable power on the control board. this allows you to control the speed from the machine itself. there is a 0-5v lead which connects to the center terminal. and a ground and that connects to the right terminal and the left terminal is empty on the power supply. i have a schematic which shows it for the ProVer board but most control boards have a 0-5 v port.
If it was not for the low rpm speed (compared to a dremel type tool) I think I would buy one of these and use it for a dremel tool! Two and a half times the power and super quite compared to the dremel!
NotAnExpert, haha, great idea!
A Dremel is 75W. When I measured my "500W" spindle I could never get it to draw more than 100W even loaded down. So they're 500 Chinese Watts not western Watts. Chinese Watts are obviously a lot smaller than our Watts are. But inflating specs is typical. I have a 600W Bosch router and it is really 600W. It is way more powerful than these air cooled spindles are. Easy 6 times. Turn that router on and it'll twist your wrist.
Hey man looks like your cnc has a bunch of vibrations, likely causing the lousy finish. Great video though thanks!
A bunch of vibrations? Lousy? For a printed CNC machine running a cheap Chinese spindle this is pretty dam good. Of course it's not going to be a Tormach 440...
I've built a couple of spindles for my CNC milling machine but I needed one with a little more power so I bought this one. I found the spindle was out about .002" TIR so I mounted in my chuck and steady rest and reground the chuck with my tool post grinder in situ. I got it down to about 2 or 3 tenths. I haven't used it much yet so I can't comment on how well it will hold up.
You're bonkers.....that .002" is quite acceptable for any material or machine this spindle could be used on. It's probably aimed at the 3018 type router for an upgrade and that machine will not touch metal EVER so going to the lengths of regrinding the chuck is a total waste of time. BTW, any run out on a cutter will just make the cutter appear that much bigger in diam, and .002" runout is nothing to get excited about.
The TIR was the information I was looking for.
@@gangleweed Actually no. I've had ample time to use this spindle now on my CNC lathe. Within its working range it is very good. Mine never gets hot but, again, I don't push it.
Cutters mounted in the spindle are accurate, at the cutter to 0.0004 +/- a couple of tenths. I also like how smooth and quite it is. 0.002 is not good enough, many times I take small depth cuts with 0.0625 or smaller cutters. If a spindle is off you get ridges after each pass. I don't get that.
@@mosfet500 lol.....I just have to chuckle at all those people who buy these cheap spindles from B'good et al and think they are getting super precision in the tenths of a thou range.........they are intended to give more cutting capability for cheap routers like the 3018 type with bearings that are not super precision and after a few hours of running they will be even less so.
Coupled to that the ER 11 chucks and collets supplied with these motors are nothing to write home about, certainly not super precision but more in the adequate class, so stop kidding yourselves.
As I always put my money where my mouth is, I have just " invested" in one of these spindles packages with the aluminium mounting and a power supply too as I have a purpose I want to pursue.
@@gangleweed The thing about them is that they, as I have done, be improved. I ground the ER16 (not ER11) chuck to 0.0002" in situ and it's still dead on so the bearing, as of this writing, are fine. I changed the collet to Techniks, a Chinese collet with very good TIR. You can get any bearings you want, you can put ABEC 7 Fafnir bearings in if you like. This is basically a good spindle for the price and used within its design range very capable. Sure it's not HAAS but it's not $1k either.
Excellent video! Thanks for the share. I have been struggling with my cheap version of a Dremel and was thinking of trying a different one. I like the low noise and the torque of this spindle. Not sure how it compares with the Makita RT0701 router which does make a loud noise. Hey btw, the Bangood discount code has expired, any chance of getting a new one?
Good vid. Just my 2 cents worth. Like a router, on the outside of a circle go R to L. Inside circle go L to R.
The first thing that plastic fan on the end of the spindle reminds me of, is some motors I've pulled from household appliances in the past. It looks JUST like a motor pulled fro ma vaccuum with an er16 collet added on lol!!
Id also love to see how it handles aluminum/brass with say a rough 4 flute end mill
I cut aluminum with a single flute end mill made for aluminum in this video. ua-cam.com/video/CijCtqCUbBs/v-deo.html
Which filament did you use for the spindle mount? I've heard some say that PLA will warp from the heat from this motor but the temp you had there didn't seem that high. If you did use PLA how does it perform?
I used PETG filament.
I like your animated intro, kinda badass
Thanks for the video, its always very interesting to see what you are playing with. Do you think any type of air assist at the tip of the bit would produce a much finer and cleaner cut, it would push the debris away and at the same time it could assist in keeping the tip at a cooler operating temperature, I come from a laser cutting background using a cnc laser engraver (blue diode) 8.5 watts of extreme power when focused correctly and we have in our community developed what we call an air assist unit, Its normally based on a Hailea AC0 328 Pond air pump which pushes out 80 litres of air a minutes and using fine copper tubing 2/3mm bore we direct this to the focal point of the laser, this allows the laser to cut a lot cleaner on wood , less charring and a much more fine style of cut can be achieved, I was wondering if the system could be adapted for this use, I dont have a mill at the moment as my cnc is all laser but I am thinking of purchasing wood CNC router and either a DIY system or a kit, not sure at the moment as there are so many options and to be frank i am not sure where or how to start. I am not looking for a huge footprint, my laser is 400/600 mm and I find this is plenty big enough for what I want to achieve. I am not looking to mill metals and I am not ready to go down the 4th Axis route yet. For me 3 axis is plenty to get my head around.....Many thanks Neil
You can also use mdf wood, though more expensive but it’s not sheets of laminated wood
I wonder if they sell the spindle for cheaper without the bracket? That bracket is huge! Or without the controller. Just give it 100 volts dc without variable speed? 11000rpm isn't something I'd slow down.
I made a video on my high voltage dc power supply that was cheap: I could add 3 more ports for 100 vdc!
Yes you can buy the spindle without the bracket. Just look on Banggood or Amazon.
Slow down the x and y speed to avoid splintering with upcut bits. Get a downward bit though at some point.
Yeah, I switched to a downward bit and it works much better.
First, do not try to fit a 1/8" bit into a 3mm collet. you can damage the spindle. You must always use a smaller bit than the ER collet size!
Regarding the spindles. these are nice and quiet and maybe ok for milling a PCB or some softwood but they do not have angular contact bearings and there is axial slop that can never be fixed. This is due to using deep groove roller bearings which are not designed for axial loads for milling. They can take some axial loads however the slop will cause massive chatter. They also do not have the runout tolerances you'd want to ideally have. You can mill aluminum with them but you will not be able to properly use your bits and likely will be doing more rubbing than cutting. I wish it were not the case but there is no shortcut here for cost savings.
Great Vid, U might consider using a V bit to remove the burrs in a finishing or profile cut, not quite so sure about the lines yet BUT keep em coming, meant to ask what type of 3D Printer would u recommend for a beginner?
Thanks for your input. The Creality CR10S is what I use and love it. It took only about 20 minutes to get it up and running and I never have to tinker with it like the older 3D printers I had.
use a down cut bit to get away from the fuzzies
Not to shabby for a smaller unit love the mostly 3dprinted cnc well done
Can you please also make a video to test if the spindle is really worth it by cutting aluminium. I would appreciate if you can do that as it seems to be a good deal, thanks in advance.
Yes I plan on it. A lot of people have asked for it.
@@MakingStuff Thank you :-)
Thanks for this video series on the MPCNC. I'm researching and collecting parts for my build. This spindle has a brushed motor. Brush wear is a problem. Brushless spindle motors can be found for a little more money but should last a great deal longer. How much runout does it have, what type of bearings and how much actual power is it using?
I don't know the internal details of the spindle. I haven't done much with the machine since building it, but I plan on using it here in the near future.
You did not mount the tool in the collet correctly. The collet (of which you got only one, the 3.175 mm one) snaps into the ER11 nut with a small ridge at the top of the collet. Once you snap the collet into the black ER11 nut you can insert the tool/bit. And then thread everything into/on the spindle.
Excellent video!
I congratulate you on the project you carried out. coincidentally I am moving forward with the same project and in this regard I wanted to consult you the following:
-Is the speed controller of the spondel strictly necessary?
-What milling cutter do you recommend for acrylic and metal sheets?
From now I thank you. and continue with your videos that are very good !!!!
Great video! Were you manually controlling the spindle using the potentiometer or were you able to wire the spindle up to the CNC controller for spindle on/off and speed control?
It's manually controlled with the potentiometer.
What is the runout like? Have you had a chance to machine any aluminum or hardwoods yet? Good video!
I ran some white oak on it today and it worked much better than the plywood. Haven't tried aluminum yet.
@@MakingStuff I did, but with the BLDC brand. Run massive alu up to 6mm mill bits, no problem.
As a rule of thumb, and of course this is all provisional since these things get made in large quantities, the models up to 1500W seem to be fairly low runouts. Once you get in the 2.2Kw and 3Kw ranges you have a little more runout. Again, this is collated from people all over the place reporting on this sporadically and subject to change as there is quite a few brands and manufacturers at play.
Well done, just a thought do you think the aluminum bracket that came with the spindle might help keep the motor cooler? If that bracket you printed is PLA, how hot does the motor need to get to make it pliable? Just some random thoughts, great job
I was wondering that myself when I first started using it. I ran some g-code that took 2.5 hours to run. The motor never got more than 48C.
@@MakingStuff You should be good, I know when you're cutting aluminum the load is significantly greater on the motor, so it's really about what you are cutting and how fast.
When it was cutting, was the video running at normal speed?
No. I noticed a spot where he was vacuuming and it looks sped up.
Great video. In your opinion, do you think it will drive 1/4 shank bits as well as it did the 1/8 or do you think 1/4 end mill bit would be too much for it? Thanks
Yes I have used plenty of 1/4" shank bits with it.
IMO it Seems to be mainly from the plywood you used. May want to try using MDF or a higher quality harder wood oak, walnut etc. could also be a little because of the end mill. If it’s for steel then it wouldn’t be as clean on wood.
I tried it on white oak since the video was filmed and it worked much better than plywood but still had small amounts of splintering.
Making Stuff Ok good. Another tip would be to also adjust the speed of not only the end mill itself, but the movement across the X and Y axis. Maybe slow it down some. If I recall correctly from your video you were using it at max rpm’s and running it at max speed with certain materials could effect the outcome of the piece negatively. Excellent job though and I WISH I had my own CNC machine like yours!
The glue layers are tough!
TheRainHarvester yeah I can imagine!
How is your spindle performing 1 year later? Still good?
All good.
@@MakingStuff still good after 2 years?
11,400 sounds incredibly slow to me. I have built inverted pin routers for routing out model aircraft kit parts from wood. Going from a standard slow router around 22k to a 32k trim router made an incredible difference. Look for cross fluted carbide burs. Leaving nothing but points, they cut like mad.
The slow rotational speed is my biggest beef with these air cooled spindles.I was running a router on my CNC and the sound was driving me up the wall. So the air cooled spindles being quieter is nice. I think I need new bearings in that router. But with a router you con't have so many collet options for tool shanks like ER11 either.
A true BOLTR-style teardow would have been preferable but this was quite helpful. Thank you.
Use a wide dremmel tool It's from the vibration about then drill bet Are used a CNC dremmel bit With a flat surface or
Thanks for the video. I just ordered 3018 cause I can't afford the large format I really want. What CNC machine you using? Seems to be larger format. Thanks!!
It's an MPCNC.
It interferes with the stepper motors
Will this cut aluminum well?
What are the best tools for wood and soft aluminium a router or a spindle, and can you use 1/4" cutter bits?
You can use a 1/4" bit with the correct collet.
Hi, is it possible to replace the potentiometer with a digital one to be driven by arduino?
I'm after a spindle/router for my own MPCNC. I'm very inexperienced with this stuff and am just starting out. Those spindles look great for a beginner like me, even if I end up on something "beefier" later on. The mounting arrangement scares me though - there is nothing holding the spindle up, just the friction from the sides. Are there any mounts available that hold it from the bottom?
You can put a hose clamp on it both top and bottom.. with some electrical tape to prevent the hose clamps from sliding
The mount that came with it was very hard to get off. I had to get a screw driver and pry it open just to remove it. There was just no way to hook it to the MPCNC without having to use 3d printed parts. The 3D printed mounts would probably break before the let the spindle slip. I was more worried about them breaking than slipping. I'm sure if the spindle stopped turning or I took too deep of a cut, something would break on the MPCNC.
Did you use with ramps. And can you set spindle speed on software? which connection do you use
No it's not connected to the RAMPS board.
Downcut or Compression endmill would avoid the fuzz.
Have you tried if it can do Aluminum or steel?
Not yet but I am working my way up to it.
Did you build that CNC Machine yourself? If you did. Do you have the video of how to build it?
Yes I built it. There are several videos on this channel about it.
Hi, can you tell me the distance between mounting holes for making the holes until the motor arrived. Horizontal and vertical. Thank you
Sorry I don't have this spindle any longer. I sold the CNC machine that it was mounted to.
@@MakingStuff ok, thank you for the answer.
Is PLA working for the spindle mount or is the spindle getting hot after running a while?
The spindle does get warm but no where near hot enough to melt the PLA.
Go with the vfd 1.2kw or more. You won't regret it
What kind of end mill bit are you using... you didn't say what the profile... it sounds a little bit weird to me but with out knowing the bit profile info.. all I see was the size of the bit and that it's an end mill bit... but nothing else about the type of bit.. like how many flute and most importantly the tip style
It's a flat tip end mill, dual flute, spiral upcut.
Did you adjust the small potentiometer on the circuit board to a max voltage? At the moment at full speed I have 120V and the spindle runs hot. Do I have to adjust it to max 100V?
I didn't have to adjust mine.
@@MakingStuff What voltage do you get out of the power supply at full speed?
Hi sir how to repair a spindle not rotating or work?
I bought one, thanks for the review :)
Thanks for watching!
What do you recommand if i want a water cooled spindle for cutting aluminum?
Do you recommend specific company ?
I'm confused,do you just run 110AC to the power connectors,or do you get the 24DC or whatever,from the mill's board?
The power supply that comes with it connects to house current. Then it steps the voltage down depending on what speed you have it set to.
can it cut aluminium and please answer me it for a graduation project and thank you
How do you install it? I'm trying to figure the wiring out
Heavy is good. Heavy is reliable. If it misfires, you can hit him with it...
I also use this Boris the Blade quote often.
What's the distance between the holes on the mounting bracket?
How did you wire up the PSU? Mine is in Chinese.
I see that you use Marlin as a milling platform. Can you link the videos regardning using marlin for this milling macine you build. I did the same and i´m usning uno arduino and grbl. But using ramps 1.4 is an awesome platform and the cost is 15 usd for a kit with lcd and shield plus mainoard 2560. I bought 2 sets just in case as they are so versatile. I run my prter wirh marlin 2.0.7 and ramps 1.4 hybrid on 24v. I´d love to see your build for cnc roter and also plasma. I have a cheap cutter lying around. Just havent gotten around to building it. Need to build a garage first...
i did build my own cnc milling machine. I use grblgru as cam module. it is free and powerful. i use arduino uno r3 and grbl shield. But i plan to use mega2560 and ramps 1.4 But you can also use marlin to mill stuff. and use the lcd and jog the machine. I will check out ESTL also. Right now i'm getting to the point where i can use my diy machine, with cutting fluid system and ventialtions systems. it is designied to cut and engrave alumium, at low speeds and high rpm, rather than a regualr milling machine. I will of course mill wood also. I use ballscrews
Did you wire it in so that the onboard controller controlled the speed and switching on/off?
No I am manually controlling the speed, on/off. I plan to put a solid state relay on the mains power side in the future.
@@MakingStuff Thanks for the reply. It is much appreciated.
Its because your using a upcut bit instead of a downcut bit
@8:57 -- you need to use a finishing bit / do a finishing pass. (Or some sandpaper...) [p.s. we can't make comments in the description, only the comments section. XD]
Can you control the speed from your software? Thanks for the video.
I don't think so with the ramps board but not 100% certain. If there is a way to do it, I'm sure Ryan has it posted on the MPCNC forum or website.
It would be helpful if you chucked up a piece of drill rod and did a runout test on the spindle. All of your tests were subjective observations. Still, good effort as this spindle is probably as precision (or better) than the rest of the CNC machine.
Sound measurement depend heavily on distance. With no distance mentioned, the measurement means nothing.
Plus his hand was muffling the microphone. A pointless experiment.
You can get a fairly good idea of the distance from the video. You don't need a super-precise measurement to figure out that it's much quieter than a router.
Thanks from Brazil.