Cooling a water cooled spindle, without pipes everywhere & huge water tanks/buckets!

[Boyan Silyavski]

No need for radiator. Just a waste of money. 1000l/ph pump + 5l car radiator fluid+ big transparent 5l jar from any chinese shop + transparent plastic hoses. Again, anything else is a waste of money. Thats for 0.8kw spindle. 15l have to be ok for the 2.2kw one.

-Water cools also in the plastic tubing on its way
-The tubing should be transparent so you can see eventual bubles
-the car liquid takes away heat better/glycol/ and will not spoil with time/at least for an year, later-yes/
-the car cooling liquid has a color so you can spot leaks
-the jar should be transparent so at all times you see the flow

Never had any problems with this setup doing more than 8h continuous machining.


This is the correct pump 75W Water Pump spindle motor water-cooled circle pump For Engraving machine CNC | eBay

I bought the same locally for 20euro but this one is better because of the brass fitting.

Hope it helps.

[Jonathan]

No need for radiator. Just a waste of money. 1000l/ph pump + 5l car radiator fluid+ big transparent 5l jar from any chinese shop

In most circumstances, that's true, but if you're trying to get away without a tank a radiator is certainly needed. For my 2.2kW spindle I have a tank which is filled with about 8L and it's not really enough for more than a few hours. Clearly it depends on how much power you're drawing from the spindle, but 5L of fluid will only be able to absorb the heat for a very short amount of time if the spindle is used at anywhere near rated power. You must be using only a fraction of the rating to get away with 5L.
In Hank's case it's a small spindle on a small machine, so it might be acceptable.

There are plenty of cheaper pumps on eBay...

[Boyan Silyavski]

In most circumstances, that's true, but if you're trying to get away without a tank a radiator is certainly needed. For my 2.2kW spindle I have a tank which is filled with about 8L and it's not really enough for more than a few hours. Clearly it depends on how much power you're drawing from the spindle, but 5L of fluid will only be able to absorb the heat for a very short amount of time if the spindle is used at anywhere near rated power. You must be using only a fraction of the rating to get away with 5L.
In Hank's case it's a small spindle on a small machine, so it might be acceptable.

There are plenty of cheaper pumps on eBay...

Sorry, forgot to say 0.8kw spindle, so like you say multiply by 3 the water amount. Will edit now my post.

However my water doent heat at all obviously because of the long hosing/ i have it run inside the cable chain guides.


I encourage greatly liquid versus radiator. One more thing to fail/fan/.

[richie00boy]

I've got a car screenwash tank with inbuilt pump. I planned to run it at 6V or so as it's not meant to run continuously, and running at 12V I think the flow will be way more than needed.

Only problem is how to attach a return connector to the top, and making a wooden crade for it. If it proves too difficult (maybe it's polypropylene which won't glue) I might try using a small car header tank and I've got a small brushless pump which will be fine for continuous duty.

[Boyan Silyavski]

I've got a car screenwash tank with inbuilt pump. I planned to run it at 6V or so as it's not meant to run continuously, and running at 12V I think the flow will be way more than needed.

Only problem is how to attach a return connector to the top, and making a wooden crade for it. If it proves too difficult (maybe it's polypropylene which won't glue) I might try using a small car header tank and I've got a small brushless pump which will be fine for continuous duty.

Hi,
in fact i did just the same at the beginning. It will heat and eventually break. I had a Mercedes screenwash water tank and VDO brand pump. I fixed a PC cooler fan on the pump and run it at 6v. One day it broke. It heated a lot and made a lot of noise.

Its up to you but if you go to a local pet store for 20eur you can have a perfect 1000lph pump, if you dont want spending 32euro on the ebay one/3000lph/.

[EddyCurrent]

As it's in your dining room why not pump it through a wall mounted central heating radiator, nobody would notice it and it would heat the room in winter.

[m_c]

I'd guess a 2.2kw spindle will produce far less than 500W heat, as electic motors are 90%+ efficient, and the bearing friction won't contribute that much to heat.
Personally, I'd opt for a copper coil. Get a coil of 8 or 10mm copper pipe, make some holders to space and secure it (basically some bits of MDF/Plywood notched out to accept the pipe) and pipe it up. You'll still need some kind of tank to allow for expansion though.

I certainly wouldn't be using a car radiator, as they're designed to deal with 10's of KW of heat. A heater matrix would be more suitable, but it's quite hard to get them with basic pipe connections, and it's not worth scrapyards removing them as they take that long to get into.

[richie00boy]

Hi,
in fact i did just the same at the beginning. It will heat and eventually break. I had a Mercedes screenwash water tank and VDO brand pump. I fixed a PC cooler fan on the pump and run it at 6v. One day it broke. It heated a lot and made a lot of noise.

Its up to you but if you go to a local pet store for 20eur you can have a perfect 1000lph pump, if you dont want spending 32euro on the ebay one/3000lph/.

What power spindle was that with? Mine is 800W.

I'm actually leaning more towards using the separate pump and container as I'm not really that convinced the screenwash pump will last very long. I had a brainwave today on the tank. I've got a tall small footprint plastic food container that could be a good tank and I can make some bulkhead mounting pipe fittings using hosetail connectors and a nut and washer.

[Boyan Silyavski]

What power spindle was that with? Mine is 800W.

I'm actually leaning more towards using the separate pump and container as I'm not really that convinced the screenwash pump will last very long. I had a brainwave today on the tank. I've got a tall small footprint plastic food container that could be a good tank and I can make some bulkhead mounting pipe fittings using hosetail connectors and a nut and washer.

Hi,
My spindle is 800w. Thats what i am telling you, the screenwash pump will not last even if coooled by pc fan and makes a lot of noise, plus you need a 2-3A power supply at least to run it. Will not run with a smaller than 1A.

Here is a picture of my setup. Note that at the picture is not seen but now i have a bar which is fixed to the spindle and holds together the cable and the housing straight vertical, to avoid twisting of the cable and the hose. As this bloody chinese spindle cable connection was giving me problems: