On Monday, October 31, 2011 10:13:10 PM BRIAN GLACKIN did opine: > When using a router as a spindle, there are several things to consider. > > First, the routers are air cooled. This means if you run the router at > lower speeds, you have to watch for overheating.
A given. > Secondly, the airflow > is directed from the top of the router down towards the work. This > means it will nicely blow the chips away from your cutting tool, but > will also dramatically increase the volume of dust colletion you need > to control the dust that will otherwise coat everything in your shop. > On my gantry I went with a long shaft die grinder ($24.00 from harbor > freight). I have one of those, a quite decent tool for the price. It is mounted to a long bar of alu that is bolted to the front of the Z axis castings front face, and can be mounted both several inches left of and about 3.5" forward of the normal spindle. This is so that it can work on the end of a stick of wood mounted in a vice that allows the stick to hang down as far as the floor from the left front of the table. I used it to carve the tenons on the ends of the sticks for a furniture project, about 188 of them, at about 3 minutes per end of stick clamped in including rejigging the sticks. Runout of the bit is a small problem, cutting the tenon about 3 or 5 thou smaller at the base than at the tip, but I changed the code to do it in 4 depth steps and it was absolutely usable. I did have a bit creep in the collet problem sneak in as the solid carbide bit dulled, and had to switch bits 3 times because of that. I reused those same bits in the normal, slow spindle to dig the mortises but as they were about 1.35" deep, trapping the heat, I had to cut a lot slower with a vacuum right at the bit to pull the chips out of the mortises. Overall, the biggest fit problem was that I made the mortis holding jig with about .020" more clearance than needed to the end of the stick, needing a trip through the tablesaw to make the joints match after the glueup. Or my method of homing needed tweaked. :-) I expect I was about 3.5 minutes runtime per mortise, about 15 minutes quicker than I could have dug them by hand. > The spindle is not the most accurate but plenty good for my > needs. THe long shaft provides a nice mounting area and keeps the > motor away from the work. In addition, the cooling air for the motors > is not directed at the cutting area making it easy to control dust from > the operation. > > For better quality long shaft die grinders, you might check out the > bosch or similar units. They come with collets down to 1/8" (cannot > recall the metric equivalent). > > HTHs. > > Brian Cheers, Gene -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) My web page: <http://coyoteden.dyndns-free.com:85/gene> Conscious is when you are aware of something and conscience is when you wish you weren't. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ RSA® Conference 2012 Save $700 by Nov 18 Register now http://p.sf.net/sfu/rsa-sfdev2dev1 _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
