As titled, I'm looking for a quieter, affordable, spindle for my Ooznest Ox. The Kress is very good, but noisy! Ideally Air cooled (One less thing to worry about) Any recommendations for something quieter?
I guess you will need to look into the 800watt - 1.5KW Chinese spindle area. Check out a few videos, I know it is hard to truly audibly visualise the amount of noise generated, but the opinion is that they are quieter than most.
I've used a Kress myself in the past, and yes, they are very good, and yes, they are noisy! I'm about to build a new machine and intend to use a Chinese spindle. Probably a 1.5kw as my gantry will support the weight and torque. Can't decide yet whether to go dry or wet. Plus of course a VFD. I just put "Chinese Spindle" in the Openbuild search box and got loads of threads for this. Have a look there as well.
the Makita RT0701C many of people use is very quite in the 10000-16000RPM range. I feel that many people run unnecessarily high RPM. When I'm cutting in the basement you can't hear the router upstairs but you can hear when it's cutting harder materials.
I have a .8kw watercooled and its hard to tell its running when it's not cutting. It's a very quiet spindle. I can talk on the phone right next to it.
Sounds great. It’s the water cooling that puts me off as it’s just another system to maintain etc Out of interest which have you got?
I really like the 300w air-cooled spindle that I have. I got mine from inventables, but there are a number of seemingly identical ones from other sources. The whole package of stuff they have for it makes it very easy to do PWM control and avoid doing AC wiring and such. It is likely to be about as powerful as your current router is. But it is very quiet. The sounds of cutting and the vacuum are now the loudest things when I cut, not the spindle itself. So overall, if you feel like you need a more powerful spindle than what you have, go for one of the upgrades to a 800w or 1.5kw spindle. But if your spindle is powerful enough already, just get a 300w or 400w air-cooled spindle and have the equivalent power but quieter. -D
High-Torque Stepper Motor, Stepper Motor, Driver, Stepper Motor kit, DC Servo Motor, DC Servo Motor kit, Stepper Motor Power Supply, CNC Router, Spindle, and other Components. Stepper Motor | Stepper Motor Driver | CNC Router | Laser Machine | 3D Printers For Sale Water system is nothing. I keep a pump in a dark sealed container of distilled water and have a silver kill coil installed inline. Haven't done anything to it in two years. The water is still clean and fresh(I wouldn't drink it though). Another member used a water res from a pc and mounted it to his gantry. Running the water lines wasn't too bad, but it's one more thing to have room for. They have an aircooled version in stock. Im no fan of DC spindles. Been down that road.
The thing about air cooling is that it's completely dependent on rpm. Slow means quieter, but also less cooling. Fast means good cooling, but louder. With water cooling, temperature is completely independent of rpm. Water pumps are also dam near silent. As for maintenance, you won't have to do any if you build a sealed system. I don't have a proper watercooled spindle yet, but my desktop has been running watercooled for 3 years and I have yet to touch it. The negative would be that you have more overall gear. You can't just swap between machines if that's what you desire.
