Steel Framed CNC router

[Joe]

Hi Kenneth

The first thing that I would mention is that I have had some problems with the designing of the brushless spindle, The main one being cooling the bearings and the motor. The outrunner motors are designed to have constant air flow over them and a computer fan just won't cut it, however the motor seems to still work fine when hot and always provides enough power. The other problem I had was that the motor has a 8mm shaft and I wanted a ER16 collet chuck so in the end I made a complete new shaft that would fit the 20mm bearings and then the 8mm motor, Quite a hard job as the shaft has many different diameters and they all have to be exactly on centre.


I have since found this design which I am hoping to replicate which is far better than mine : http://dieselrc.com/projects/cncspindle/

The next thing i would say is yes mine does cope with aluminum but very small amounts, the unsupported rails bend and cause serious chatter, but it is nothing to do with the belts they are fine so only go for the supported type of rail, The momus type look good but quite hard to set up maybe 16mm supported rail from china is a possibility?

I have a few more pictures just before it went to the show looking all shiny :)

Regards

Joe