Where to get a spindle

[HiltonSteve]

Sorry i have not been on hear much recently, been working on the mill, il get some pics up when the stuff arrives, i dont think the sherline spindles are big enough for what i want, basically im using a minium of a 2kw motor possibly up to 4kw depends what is available.

i think making a spindle is the way forward because i just cannot find anything on the internet, id be interested in seeing some drawaings :) thanks. this mill is going to be quite big and very heavy so need a fairly big spindle, most important question is what is the best tooling type? ER 16? i want to be able to have all the cutting tools in their own holders and be able to just quickly change the holders in and out of the spindle. how about an air powered tool holder?

2-4kw....!!! bloody hell, what are you thinking of milling????

Been playing with my new 750w (1HP) spindle the last few days and been milling aluminium with 8mm cutters no problem at all, not even a change in motor noise. Still got some minor vibration issues but I think its a combination of things that I am slowly working my way through.

As for a tool changer take a look at this and see what idea's it gives you, certainly gave me a few -

[kev]

2-4kw....!!! bloody hell, what are you thinking of milling????

haha, hmm well i have got an unused 3 phase 15kw inverter so i need a motor that will run with it, so what i will do is gear up the spindle, a 2 pole 3 phase motor is around 3000rpm, so probably gear it so the spindle runs at 12000rpm? at 50 hz, the inverter can go as low as 1hz so 240rpm at the spindle and as high as 170hz not that im going to run it anywhere near that!, so need a semi powerful motor to be able to get the low down torque.

i definitely want to be able to mill aluminium and im thinking it should be able to mill steel.