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So I bent my spindle shaft?

1060 Views 3 Replies 2 Participants Last post by  Dementor, 
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Hello all,

I have been fighting with my router to cut acrylic for about a week now. Today I finally got it to pocket and cut out shapes by trying different bits and all of a sudden my spindle vibrated for a second or two while cotouring and the shaft bent.
I have a 60 x 60" Chinese laser engraver which turns out does not engrave/cuts clear materials. So I bought a router attachment for it from the seller in hopes it would solve the problem. It's been nothing but headaches with this thing up until this point. Does anyone know of a good spindle I can put on it to give it another chance? The spindle is 50mm wide where it mounts. Or any advice or other approaches for cutting/pocketing acrylic (the only thing I will be using the machine for).

Thank you

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Just an update. I managed to fit my dremel 3000 on it and it works even better than that spindle it came with lol. Atleast it's back up and running until I find a spindle for it.
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That motor that you pictured is a small DC motor at best suited to RC model cars and boats, definitely not something to class as a spindle. Obvious issues include way to small shaft, as witnessed by how much larger the collet section is compared to the actual shaft, bushed motor instead of proper bearings, plastic rear housing, no secure mounting features etc. Sorry, but you fell for the nasty chinaman trick of leading the Caucasian to think something is real because it looks close in a pic and they are too far away for it to be worthwhile sending back.

Stepping a machine up from a laser engraver to router would be very hard as the engraver transport would be relatively lightweight and lack the rigidity to handle the actual cutting forces imposed by a spindle and bit being fed through material. Stepping down from router to laser potentially would be easier as the loads placed on the transport would be much lighter, but the overall precision may not be there, given that the laser beam should be way finer than positioning accuracy achievable by the transport.

Personally, if a machine was touted as doing both jobs, I wouldn't buy it because they need totally different transport characteristics and would not be great in either role. Just my thoughts.
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malb said:
That motor that you pictured is a small DC motor at best suited to RC model cars and boats, definitely not something to class as a spindle. Obvious issues include way to small shaft, as witnessed by how much larger the collet section is compared to the actual shaft, bushed motor instead of proper bearings, plastic rear housing, no secure mounting features etc. Sorry, but you fell for the nasty chinaman trick of leading the Caucasian to think something is real because it looks close in a pic and they are too far away for it to be worthwhile sending back.

Stepping a machine up from a laser engraver to router would be very hard as the engraver transport would be relatively lightweight and lack the rigidity to handle the actual cutting forces imposed by a spindle and bit being fed through material. Stepping down from router to laser potentially would be easier as the loads placed on the transport would be much lighter, but the overall precision may not be there, given that the laser beam should be way finer than positioning accuracy achievable by the transport.

Personally, if a machine was touted as doing both jobs, I wouldn't buy it because they need totally different transport characteristics and would not be great in either role. Just my thoughts.
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Thanks for the reply! Sad to say this, but you're right! The machine is not solid at all. the x axis aluminum bar bends easily under a little load. I'm just happy it actually cuts. But I found out the hard way I have to do 5mm passes at a 1500 mm/m feedrate to pocket and cut 5mm acrylic. Takes a bit longer than I would like, but at least I can make some money to save up for a better setup or a co2 laser.
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