High speed spindles on conventional mills?

[alanambrose]

Interesting Jazz. I note that Tormach do a 1.5hp 24K spindle and suggest it is for aluminium, brass etc. I guess that makes sense if you mostly cut those only.

Alan

[JAZZCNC]

Interesting Jazz. I note that Tormach do a 1.5hp 24K spindle and suggest it is for aluminium, brass etc. I guess that makes sense if you mostly cut those only.

Alan

Tormach's spindles are silly overpriced and underpowered IMO, as are the machines in general.!

For small tooling, less than 3mm, I wouldn't fit less than 40K. We are just about to build a machine designed for cutting aluminium moulds with 40k 2.2Kw spindle which the largest tool will probably be 8mm (other than a surfacing bit) and the smallest will be 0.1mm and I consider this the minimum RPM.

It does depend on what you want to cut and how quickly. If your mostly cutting steel and just wanting to hog it out then it's a waste of money and you have the correct tool already.
If your wanting to cut Alu, brass, composites, plastics with modern tool-paths then fitting the right high-speed spindle could easily transform a low to a mid-price range milling machine into a much more useful tool for a serious user.