High Speed spindle tool for the lathe

[Christophe Mineau]

Hi,
I already showed different approaches to mount a rotary tool on the lathe, a Dremel mount or a Drill mount or here and the smaller chuck version here.

In that quest, I think I have found the ultimate solution, which fixes all the drawbacks of the different solutions above.
1st quality, there is no or very small run-out, second it features an ER11 chuck which allows for a wide range of bit diameters (ok, up to 7mm).
In addition it is quite powerfull (400W) and can spin from 0 to 12000 rpm, with good torque even at low speed.

This spindle is actually a CNC spindle sold on the well known Chinese platforms. I purchased mine on eBay, and I must say that I am so far very happy for the value and quality.
The kit contains the spindle, air cooled, the power supply, 48V / 480W (quite usefull by itself) , a PWM controller board with a potentiometer to regulate the speed, and a clamp designed to hold the body of the spindle with 4 screws.



My plan is to install that spindle in the QCTP of my metal lathe.
I had to slightly modify the aluminum clamp, milling flat the bottom of the sole, and then I screwed this steel dovetailed plate, in order to fit the QCTP socket.


Here is how looks the spindle tool ready for mounting in the QCTP.


Then I had to pack all the components and mainly isolate the power supply and control board.
I had the idea of making a box that would have a double purpose : enclose all the component AND tidying up all the parts for transport and storage.


Here is the box finished and closed


And on the left part, you can see the parts and cords in it.


I can attach the box to the lathe with two simple wire hooks


Ready to use the tool


The spindle tool mounted in axial position


The dovetail allows for height adjustment. I think I will improve it with a screw mechanism for fine adjustment.


The spindle tool mounted in transverse position

[DIYer]

Thanks Christophe Mineau! We've added your High Speed Spindle to our Lathe Accessories category,
as well as to your builder page: Christophe Mineau's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

High Speed Spindle by Christophe Mineau

tags: lathe, chuck, spindle

[rossbotics]

Looks great Chris
So what do you plan on doing with this high speed CNC motor ? would you do engraving ? you could use it as an internal grinder is suppose, I see a lot of interesting ideas here, cross drilling small holes Etc.
I would like to something you do with it

Great Work

Doug

[Christophe Mineau]

Hi Doug,
Yes, the reason why I purchased this unit is mainly for doing some precision grinding, I have to regrind a bad ER32 chuck and none of the solutions I used previously were suitable for that, I will show that sooner or later, by the time being, I have some time consuming projects in the house (tiling this week) that keep me away from the shop :o(

Thanks for the comment Doug !
Christophe

PS: by the way, I see some other applications for the unit, for woodwind instrument making, in particular for milling flute windows, with the compound at an angle, it should be the killer tool for that (thought I do it very well by hand until now)

[petertha]

I've been eyeing the same unit (or possibly the 500 watt version) on Ebay targeting micro tool post grinding on a 14x40 lathe. Did yours come with the ER collets or you supplied your own? Reason I was wondering is if the runout was decent maybe I would get the one with collets included as I don't have that particular size.

Also do you have a feel for heat & bearing life? For example could you run it for 15 minutes on moderate removal say 0.0005" per pass & motor temp & bearing play seems ok? Or does it get quite hot? (I see it has a built in fan.)

I'd like to see some examples of your grinding projects!

[Christophe Mineau]

Hi
I purchased mine exactly as on the picture, with the ER11 collet chuck and a single 1/8 collet.
I had purchased besides the full set of metric ER11 collet for a good price also and still good quality.
The runout is quite good for my need, and thanks to this tool , I managed to fix a very bad ER32 collet chuck that I also purchased the same way.
And now this ER32 becomes great !
You can see it here :

But actually, I couldnt answer yet to you about durability, I don't use it so often, especially on metal.
My main occupation is building musical instruments and I use it for some precision micro milling , like shown in this article for instance :
Breton flute

So far I never noticed any heat building up, it is very well vented.
Overall it is very good quality, and you can see this unit at work on lots of CNC videos in Youtube, I'm not worried about it's durability.
I also have had for a much longer time the same power supply for my 12V "cordless to corded" drill, and I ask it al lot and it works like a charm.

Cheers
Christophe

[Paul Jones]

Christophe,

After seeing you design last year, I have been wanting to build a similar QCTP adapter for a small rotatory tool such as a pneumatic pencil grinder or a small Foredom handpiece such as the No.28 for my small Unimat SL 1000 lathe. The Unimat has been setup with indexing plate adapters on both the lathe horizontal and vertical directions (see http://www.homemadetools.net/forum/i...2002#post14379 and http://www.homemadetools.net/forum/m...0111#post11976 ) whereby the additional QCTP small rotatory tool adapter could be used for machining small parts and clock gears or creating more indexing plates. There is not too much room to do this on the Unimat but I think by removing the tailstock for this type of operation it should work.

Regards,

Paul Jone