The 2.2Kw Chinese Spindles - Info, Setup and Advice + More

[Shinobiwan]

How do you know? If it's just based on his word, then of course he's going to say that.

When you say you make decent parts I'm taking you on your word. Of course you think you do but can you prove it? Well yes you can, I only need go ask people you've done jobs for or sold services to.

Same principle with Chai. Plenty of happy customers and very hard to find complaints.

At the end of the day its your money, spend it how you will. I've been bitten from not researching exhaustively and being too trusting. Now I'd sooner spend that bit more and go with someone who has a good rep. Take it or leave it I ain't justifying it any more than that!

[John S]

Can't comment on the 2.2Kw water cooled spindles as although i have a few I have never looked into them.

However when Ketan at ARC was looking at the air cooled range he carries he bought about 6 which we ran and also stripped to see what the differences were.

Basically 4 of the vendors were lying thru their teeth about what was actually inside them, all the lies were about what bearings were fitted.

The two remaining vendors did have genuine high grade German bearings fitted and there was virtually no difference in their products.

I see no reason why the water cooled spindles do not follow this same pattern. Personally if i was in the market for one I'd go with Chai.

[MikeyC38]

BTW guys just a quick question about current pricing and sourcing for these 2.2kw Spindles and VFDs. I've been searching on ebay and now the prices are over £600!! When I looked in February they were around £250-£280. Anybody know why such ar large increase other than supply and demand?

Thanks
Mike

[Ricardoco]

BTW guys just a quick question about current pricing and sourcing for these 2.2kw Spindles and VFDs. I've been searching on ebay and now the prices are over £600!! When I looked in February they were around £250-£280. Anybody know why such ar large increase other than supply and demand?

Thanks
Mike

Ive been looking the same as you and Ive decided to go for the air cooled ones because its a gamble where ever you get them because you cannot see the bearings without breaking the warranty seal, Just like john said, chai Is great and ive bought plenty of other stuff from him in the past but i may take a gamble on this

NEW UPDATE 3KW AIR COOLED/ER20 GERMANY BEARING SPINDLE MOTOR AND MATCHING INVERTER-in Machine Tool Spindle from Industry & Business on Aliexpress.com

Rick

[Jonathan]

It's clear that we have good evidence to expect to receive a good spindle from Chai, but to me that's not reason enough to spend at least 36 extra on one. The only part I've heard of having problems is the spindle bearings, in particular using relatively cheap Chinese bearings and installing them incorrectly.

Lower quality bearings:

• We don't know if Chai uses 'good' bearings or not.
• They're likely to not last as long as high grade bearings, but apart from that I doubt you will notice a difference. They may run at a very slightly higher temperature, or have marginally lower run-out, but for the vast majority of people that is a negligible error. If you really need very low runout, then spend the extra 150-200 ish and get a better quality spindle from Aliexpress.com as that will be far better than the former, even if you get lucky.

Incorrect bearing installation:

• This is clearly bad, but if you notice it before it's too late then it's not difficult to change the bearings round. These spindles are surprisingly easy to dismantle.
• I can only find evidence of a spindle with 3 bearings being assembled incorrectly. Therefore if you get a 4 bearing spindle, which is a good idea anyway, then we can expect it to be assembled correctly. The 4 bearing spindles use 4 angular contact bearings, with the front pair both one way and the top pair the opposite way, placing the shaft in tension.

So overall, yes spending the extra money does give you peace of mind, but if you compare that to the probability of getting a bad one from other sellers it's surely worth 'risking' it. Also you can get the spindles a little cheaper than the standard eBay price if you use aliexpress and perhaps more importantly their payment system is such that the seller only gets your money when the item has arrived and you say it's good. That's pretty good leverage when trying to get a bad product replaced.

BTW guys just a quick question about current pricing and sourcing for these 2.2kw Spindles and VFDs. I've been searching on ebay and now the prices are over £600!!

Remember to search worldwide - if you tick UK only the prices are silly.

Ive been looking the same as you and Ive decided to go for the air cooled ones because its a gamble where ever you get them because you cannot see the bearings without breaking the warranty seal

Don't - you can't use very low speeds with the air cooled ones, otherwise they overheat. They're also going to be much noisier, which will add to the total noise when cutting. Also what's to suggest the bearings in an air cooled one will be any better?
I've never seen a warranty seal on one, but equally I wouldn't recommend dismantling one just for kicks...since knowing which bearings you have doesn't really change how you use it.

[Ricardoco]

Don't - you can't use very low speeds with the air cooled ones, otherwise they overheat. They're also going to be much noisier, which will add to the total noise when cutting. Also what's to suggest the bearings in an air cooled one will be any better?
I've never seen a warranty seal on one, but equally I wouldn't recommend dismantling one just for kicks...since knowing which bearings you have doesn't really change how you use it.

Hi Jonathan, well I think there have been changes since the first square ones came out.

I spent the day with a friend and he was cutting most of the day with his square one, it is noisey ill give you that, but not as noisey as i thought it was going to be, as for not being able to cut at lower speeds, his one was an 18000rpm model and he ran that all day at 8500rpm and yes it got hot but nothing to speak of.

As i said, like the round ones, things have come a long way since they came out.

He killed two square ones and a round one in 2011 and he has had this square one since may 2012 so something has changed and its not his supplier, admittedly he dosnt run it 8hrs at a time but 4-5hrs a day is not unusual, I understand that none of these spindles (square or round)runs well at low speeds because the lack of torque at lower speeds is prohibitive, so ive had to make a decision based on what ive seen, if there are round spindles out there in that price bracket (including mount,pump, tank, piping, and inverter of course) that can be seen working then point me to it ill have a look. My friends one has a warranty seal on it, must be the supplier used.
As you say it is a gamble, because its so far away, you could get anything. Ive actually asked for a price with ceramic bearings, on both the square and the round.

Rick

[r0bsk1]

BTW guys just a quick question about current pricing and sourcing for these 2.2kw Spindles and VFDs. I've been searching on ebay and now the prices are over £600!! When I looked in February they were around £250-£280. Anybody know why such ar large increase other than supply and demand?

Thanks
Mike

Dunno why the price has more than doubled on ebay but that now makes the 3kw spindle setup cheaper at £400

[D.C.]

Dunno why the price has more than doubled on ebay but that now makes the 3kw spindle setup cheaper at £400

Don't forget you also have to pay the electric bill, needlessly burning an extra 800watts adds up...

I'm not sure exactly where the sweet spot is with cnc machines, perhaps someone that has a few years experience has being moitoring their leccy bill but in school/college IT centres when you do the figures the electric bill works out as being more expensive over the lifetime of the machine than the capital cost of the computers.

[r0bsk1]

They've tripled the price beacuse........

"We are sorry that because this item is now out of stock in UK, so we rise the price."

Will the lower price return when you have stocks in the UK?

"Yes, once this item can be available in UK, we will lower the price as before."

[paulus.v]

I asked solar.jean if all his 2.2kw spindles are the same model/making and he confirmed "yes,that's right,all is same mode and same factory" and he added "we sell the products as total amount of USD374 (price+freight)".

No matter if you bid for the Japanese bearings or the German ones you will get the same product from him.
Possible to be the same seller from Aliexpress with the lowest price (note the Japanese and German bearings mentioned in the same listing).

Chai sells spindles manufactured by Jiesite and Jean the ones made by Huajiang. Both located in the Changzhou city. In my opinion both companies produces the "cheapest" Chinese spindles Jiesite is the only spindle manufacturer/trader on Alibaba who does not provide information about the bearings used. Huajiang has a made-in-china account where the P4 bearing grade is listed only for the 3 and 4.5kw models.

Jiesite seems to be a smaller and younger company with better quality control compared to Huajiang. They also have some interesting tips for spindle use. Here follows the most interesting one:

During storage and transport of the spindle, the status of high-speed grease inside the bearing will change. The user shall run it at a low speed first by starting from the lowest speed of the spindle for 30 minutes and then 20 minutes for every 3000 rounds; otherwise there will have abnormal sound, noise, heat and other phenomena, which will affect the bearing life if the spindle is started directly at a high speed. During long term storage, the spindle shall run (at low speed) for 15~30 minutes once a week at least.

None of the Chinese manufacturers claim to use import bearings.