BT/ISO15 ATC Spindle Cartridge on Kickstarter

[dalecnc]

In the past, I have produced ATC router spindles in ISO20 size, the issue is the price, the first response is usually "I can buy something similar in china for about $1,000.00 less" and from my perspective, anyone making this claim deserves to buy the china ATC router spindle because their sole purchasing factor is the price.

It is a known fact that china copied my air-cooled square body ER20 router spindle (and did a lousy job at it) and I can't compete with their price unless I use the same low-quality bearings, stator and rotor and this is not an option for me.

This doesn't include the warranty nightmare I've encountered by people trying to get me to warranty their china spindle and they think I'm just trying to avoid providing the warranty.

My stator and rotor do not fit in the china copy, the spindles are physically different sizes and their is no way to put a 82mm OD stator in a 70mm ID body or that the china body itself is 78mm shorter and if it did fit would stick out the top and bottom.

There are some who have purchased the china copy and then purchased one of mine and they all report the differences in just using it is night and day.

I warranty my products, I ensure the purchaser has no issues obtaining warranty but I can't offer warranty for a product that isn't mine and I wont use substandard parts in an attempt to make a profit or reduce the price if it has no life expectancy.

I would be extremely surprised if you could find anyone who has previously purchased a spindle of any type from me that would have anything negative to report about it, most have made repeat purchases as they add new machines to their production line.

When the production run with the updated body is finished, I'll post a picture on my website for those who want to see the finished product.

Unfortunately I'm not a business, I don't have a store or a web-store (or the time to manage one) and my efforts are in helping those home/hobby users who want something at the lowest possible price I can offer it for.

When companies like A2Z or Sherline contact me expressing interest in a product, they argue that I've offered a lower price to somewhere or sometime and refuse to pay more so I just stop communicating with them, they expect a profit and in all fairness I expect one too.

It's not like they contracted me to design a product for them and their retail prices usually exceeds the majority of the home/hobby users budget so I have no incentive to provide them with anything.

The reason that no one else makes such a product is the production cost versus Fair Market Value (MFV) are almost equal so the target market is usually something specialized that is willing to pay considerably more and this does not promote home/hobby CNC.

Real spindle motors are another hard to get item at a reasonable price, real as in an asynchronous servo spindle motor (2.2KW/3.0KW) 10,000RPM with an encoder in a small (140mm x 140mm) footprint (pic on website).

GSK CNC panels, I can offer anyone a GSK980MDa1 panel cheaper than they can buy it anywhere else because I am an authorized GSK dealer (long story no interest to repeat it) and when companies try to take advantage of my pricing they are disappointed that I wont play ball.

There are many people producing products under the guise that they are promoting the home/hobby CNC market but when they do it with a substantial profit, in my opinion they are only promoting their wallets.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against profit but surely someone can produce a product at a bearable price even sacrificing quality a little or funcitonality

Our group probably has about 30 plans for VMC frames and we have looked into having these produced but it always ends up the same, high engineering and mold/pattern expenses and high MOQ's prevent them from coming to fruition so all that is really available is overpriced poorly designed VMC frames from china and we aren't interested in offering them.