Hello Matt & John here. Excited CNC Newbies

Hello my name is Matt and me and my Father John have just invested in a desktop cnc router setup. We bought this second hand of Ebay and as far as I am aware it's Chinese imported type 3040.
We intended to use in our workshop along with our other carpentry machines to make custom designed Plaques and decorative box's.

After getting my head around mach3 we successfully started our first engraving projects untill darkness struck and the spindle motor started emitting a popping sound and started to smoke and then blowing the fuse in the controll unit. After replacing the fuse the spindle motor would run fine in low speed but as I started to slowly increase the speed the same would happen again.

I have tried and tried again to source a new like for like spindle but with zero success and was wondering if any would be able to point us in the right direction.

Many Thanks
Matt & John

Greetings Matt and John and welcome to mycncuk.

Is this similar to what your already using / what your looking for? :

CNC 300W Spindle Motor & Mount bracket For Engraving Carving MILLING GRINDING | eBay

or this perhaps:

WATER-COOLED SPINDLE MOTOR 1.5 KW INVERTER VFD 1.5KW VARIABLE FREQUENCY DRIVE l1 | eBay

Was there any warrenty implied when you bought the machine?

Hi Guys 0/

how long have you had it ? because even though it may say no returns on ebay they cant sell anything thats not fit for purpose and that means going tits up with a 28 days .. standard refund time..

Welcome to the forum Guys, lots of good advice offered here.

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Originally Posted by matt83

motor would run fine in low speed but as I started to slowly increase the speed the same would happen again.

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Sounds like brushes may have worn out, tried popping them out to see if there is anything left?

Cheers
Adam

hi guys and thanks for the replies.

we feel like we have been let down a little buy the ebay seller as we have tried to contact him several times and left several messages with no replies, we payed for the system on cash on collection basis so we are obviously protected by usual paypal protection (lesson now learned).

The brushes was the first things we checked on the spindle they seemed ok but to rule it out we replaced them anyway with no success.
We have since took the spindle to a local company who deals with this kind of thing and have been informed that the motor armature has gone along with the high speed switching which would require a whole new rewind with a total bill of £250.00. This is totaly out of the question.

We are now looking into the 0.8kw or 1.5kw water cooled versions offered by the guys down in portsmouth, would these be suitable for the 3040 table we have and would the stepper motors have to be re tuned to accommodate the extra weight of the spindle? If anybody has any advice on this it would be greatly appreciated, also some advice on sufficient water reservoir, tubing and pump would help aswell.

Many thanks Matt

Have a look in your workshop for an “attitude adjuster” it looks like a pickaxe without the pick and take it with you when you visit the person who sold it to you and use it like the old style bartering stick. Ask him if he has a large freezer, because you’re going to use the “attitude adjuster” to turn him into a human ice lolly. I really get annoyed with people who sell things knowing its faulty.. sorry just my personal gripe lol good look in finding a replacement.

I like the sound of this option, is very tempting lol

Quote:

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Originally Posted by matt83

hi guys and thanks for the replies.

we feel like we have been let down a little buy the ebay seller as we have tried to contact him several times and left several messages with no replies, we payed for the system on cash on collection basis so we are obviously protected by usual paypal protection (lesson now learned).

The brushes was the first things we checked on the spindle they seemed ok but to rule it out we replaced them anyway with no success.
We have since took the spindle to a local company who deals with this kind of thing and have been informed that the motor armature has gone along with the high speed switching which would require a whole new rewind with a total bill of £250.00. This is totaly out of the question.

We are now looking into the 0.8kw or 1.5kw water cooled versions offered by the guys down in portsmouth, would these be suitable for the 3040 table we have and would the stepper motors have to be re tuned to accommodate the extra weight of the spindle? If anybody has any advice on this it would be greatly appreciated, also some advice on sufficient water reservoir, tubing and pump would help aswell.

Many thanks Matt

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Its unlikely any retuning is necessary. A new spindle motor isnt going to be significantly heavier in the scheme of things than what you have (had?) and the issue, if there is one, won't be stepper performance, but gantry loading. Budget permitting, go for the higher output spindle as you can never have too much cutting power. For the water cooling standard 6 or 8mm plastic tubing is needed (depending on nipple size), a whale pump something like this: Whale Submersible 921: Amazon.co.uk: Garden & Outdoors and a suitable container of approx 10litres or so. Also see this last picture in this post for another example of a tank and also last 2 pics here for a shot of the spindle and piping.

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Originally Posted by Fivetide

Have a look in your workshop for an “attitude adjuster” it looks like a pickaxe without the pick and take it with you when you visit the person who sold it to you and use it like the old style bartering stick. Ask him if he has a large freezer, because you’re going to use the “attitude adjuster” to turn him into a human ice lolly. I really get annoyed with people who sell things knowing its faulty.. sorry just my personal gripe lol good look in finding a replacement.

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I'm not defending anyone here but it may be that there weren't any problems with the machine when the guy sold it. The machine had been working fine for you when you first started to use it so maybe the fault occurred while it was being used.
Like any electrical item faults can occur at any time, doesn't help you at the moment with a broken machine so I can understand your not happy bunnies just now.

I agree with Irving on this one. The large spindle with increased ability does NOT have enough weight to require re-tuning the motors but does have enough power to do pretty much anything you will need for a good bit of time to come. Fair warning you might find the 3040 type machine to be a very temporary item in your shop or at most the one for the small jobs in the very near future if you start getting into any larger signs or panel work. Also be aware that the Break out board/ drivers have a known history of not lasting long.

Best wishes and best of luck with your work. Welcome to the forum and hope things go well from here.

Michael

It would still be wise to check the tuning of the motors when you have installed the new spindle, since although the increase in mass of the gantry is not that great, if the machine is already set close to the limit you could have problems (or vice versa).

Annoyingly the price of these spindles doesn't drop much for the lower power (0.8kW, 1.5kW) spindles, so it's far better value to get a 2.2kW spindle however that might be a bit too heavy for the gantry? You would never actually draw 2.2kW from the spindle, but may still approach it's limit since the power rating is significantly reduced at low speeds. This makes drilling aluminium more difficult for instance if you get a lower power spindle.

would anbody be able to recommend a uk based company where I could purchase a spindle motor from of the shelf?

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Originally Posted by irving2008

Its unlikely any retuning is necessary. A new spindle motor isnt going to be significantly heavier in the scheme of things than what you have (had?) and the issue, if there is one, won't be stepper performance, but gantry loading.

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Irving there's a massive difference in weight between the rubbish he had and the WC spindles and the Z axis stepper on the 3040 is not very strong so it will affect tuning.
Expect having to drop the acceleration and possibly velocity.?

Also think about the mounting has the WC spindle is much longer and larger than the standard and will need a good mount making and possibly new back plate.?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by matt83

would anbody be able to recommend a uk based company where I could purchase a spindle motor from of the shelf?

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Spindle ... but that's only the 2.2kW one.

Virtually everyone on the forum who has one of these spindles bought it from China on eBay, so I'd be very surprised if you have problems doing that. The price difference is huge and you'll get it in under a week.

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Originally Posted by JAZZCNC

Irving there's a massive difference in weight between the rubbish he had and the WC spindles and the Z axis stepper on the 3040 is not very strong so it will affect tuning.
Expect having to drop the acceleration and possibly velocity.?

Also think about the mounting has the WC spindle is much longer and larger than the standard and will need a good mount making and possibly new back plate.?

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Hmmm, if you say so Jazz... The quick google suggested otherwise but it may be I wasn't looking at the same thing. On reflection, given the flexible nature of the beast you may well be right about needing to drop the acceleration since the gantry isn't the heaviest thing and even a small increase in spindle mass might be a large percentage of the overall moving mass.. I was thinking it was a small increase, say < 15% or so

Quote:

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Originally Posted by irving2008

Hmmm, if you say so Jazz... The quick google suggested otherwise but it may be I wasn't looking at the same thing. On reflection, given the flexible nature of the beast you may well be right about needing to drop the acceleration since the gantry isn't the heaviest thing and even a small increase in spindle mass might be a large percentage of the overall moving mass.. I was thinking it was a small increase, say < 15% or so

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Hi Irving sorry if I came over wrong.? Wasn't having a go just that I've had my hands on one of these things and the spindles are biggest pile of shite and proper mickey mouse. I've also had plenty of the small WC spindles and they are probably twice the weight of these spindles.!

Some thing else I think will be a factor that I didn't mention at time will be the strain the extra weight will put on the Z axis bearings which again are cheap units.!