Here is how I fix sheets of balsa, plywood or depron. Made from 10mm MDF and easy to make when the Router is up and running.






- Michael Hammer

Very cool setup! What size is your Turnigy motor?

Thanks RC-Archer,

Itīs a TURNIGY 50-45 890kv Brushless Outrunner from HobbyKing.com

- Michael Hammer

Originally Posted by michaelghammer

Itīs a TURNIGY 50-45 890kv Brushless Outrunner from HobbyKing.com

Just to note.
There is room for upgrade using the TR63 or TR80 series from HK. They would support 10 or 12mm shanks so they would be an option for heavy metal working.
Only problem is then the power supply will be more of a problem. It's rather difficult and pricy to get a power supply for the needed currents.

By the way, what supply are you using for yours ?

Bigger Turnigy motors with 10 and 12mm shafts is a viable way to improve performance. But collet chucks with 10 or 12 mm straight shanks are a bit harder to come by. I did manage to find a couple:

http://cgi.ebay.com/C12-ER16-150L-St...item19bbb1c44b

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/29...ht_collet.html

Iīm powering my Turnigy router with a power supply taken from a Meto Thermo label printer. This is a $2000 printer with a very nice Nema 23 motor inside. Until now Iīve been able to get my hands on five of them - for free They get thrown away when the thermo element fails. Itīs too expensive to replace it, so the whole machine is dumped in the garbage skip...

The power supply outputs 25V and with the 890kv of the Turnigy the router spins a 1mm flat mill at almost 25.000 r/min at full speed.

- Michael Hammer

What do you think of upgrading from Turnigy 50-45 to either Turnigy 50-55 or 50-65?

Initially I picked the Turnigy 50-45 because of itīs high Kv (890) compared to the 50-55 and 50-65 motors.

But after I īve gained some experience with the 50-45 equipped spindle I would not hessitate to try the 50-55 and 50-65 motors, because most of the time I run the 50-45 at half speed or lower with great results. So a 50-65A Kv400 at 25-30V would probably make a very good spindle. And itīs even $3 cheaper than the 50-45.

- Michael Hammer

I wanted to bump this thread above the Hawaiianspork226 thread so I’ll update my attempt at building a brushless spindle. I ordered a 2.75 inch round hunk of aluminum and used my Taig micro mill to mill the ends for the bearings with 8mm ID bearings from the VXB web site. I looked into the smelting stuff I would need to melt aluminum and thought that the pre-rounded aluminum would be a bit more expeditious. The 8mm spindle finally arrived from Hong Kong as recommended by Michael. Cutting of the aluminum off of the hunk wasn’t too easy! I’ll try a carbide blade in a table saw for the next version. I also ordered the Turnigy 50 45 890KV and a Superbrain 80A ESC from the recommended web site Hobby King in Hong Kong. The ESC came without a shred of documentation. I found the manual at http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...80A_online.pdf. I haven’t got it digested yet, so a report on spinning up will have to come later. Before I received the Hobby King stuff I got a bit antsy and ordered a Rimfire 50 55 650KV from Tower Hobbies. My aluminum chunk was cut for the size of the Rimfire, at 1 11/16 inch (sorry metric guys I am a hopeless Old American who knows there are 25.4 mm per inch!). My cnc router is a Rockcliff inspired Model C. It is currently running a K2CNC Z axis with the K2 aluminum mount designed for the Bosch Colt router. As it happens the 2.75 inch aluminum fits in that mount just fine.

I have been slowly gathering the bit to make a spindle and was planing on going down the belt drive brushed motor route. There are several on the market but it is more fun making one (and much cheaper)
I have the same ER11 spindle and collects and I have been inspired to go down the brushless route. Here is 3D model of Michael's design.
A couple of things i thought i might try is to remove the bearings from within the motor so the spindle only spins on the 608s. Then add a spacer tube (brown part in the picture) between the end bell and top 608 bearing, have a small adjustment nut on the of the spindle shaft so I can add a small amount of preload to the bearings, this should remove any end-float. While it is not recommend to preload standard radial bearings they should be OK. If not they are cheap.
Planing on running it off two 12V car batteries unit i can source a nice be power supply. They are cheap and easy to get some not so good ones that will be perfect for this.

That is really interesting.

This one may be easier to mount.
Made from a 50mm square block.

Hi guys,

Great so see that my "Turnigy Spindle" has inspired others to make their own brushless spindle.

Iīm looking forward to hearing about your experiences with your new spindles.

The choice of eliminating the motor bearings is an interesting one. It will however need a very precise spacer tube. You could also replace the motor bearings with better ones like hybrid ceramic bearings. Things line up very nicely when you use the motor bearings... But do try the space tube and tell us about your findings.

I thought about a square bearing block too, but I couldnīt find a way to make it with my existing tools. Or at least make it precise enough. Itīs one thing to draw it in CAD but itīs a whole different ball game to make the parts in real life

- Michael Hammer

All i can say is wow. Awesome. Now i am not going to sleep until i can make one of these spindles....
So i found some really neat endmills whose shank size is 3/8". Only problem is that ER11 max collet size is 1/4". Which means that i need to go to ER20 (max size is 3/8"). But i found the ER20 chucks to have a min diameter of 10mm. I did find some motors at HK whose shaft diameter is 10mm. Only problem is that the Speed/Volt is 200-250kv. Running at 24V, thats a max 6000rpm. I am guessing that 6000rpm is not enough for plastic/fiberglass cutting....

I thought of using pulleys, but read that pulleys are no good that those speeds (>10krpm)

So it looks like i'll have to stay with ER11 system to get the sweet-spot of max 20000rpm.

Can anyone confirm this??

Thanks !

Originally Posted by michaelghammer

Itīs been a long time since I worked with a lathe, but I did manage to machine the lump of casted aluminium into a bearing block. Two ABEC 7 skate bearings are press fitted into the lower part and one bearing in a loose fit at the top. The Turnigy motor without the bell was then slid onto the collet chuck shaft and bolted to the bearing block flange. Finally the bell was pressed onto the shaft right up against the rear bearing of the Turnigy motor.

The collet chuck spins very precisely and there is zero slip. You can not wiggle the tool at all unlike the Dremel which was very loose. The sound level of the new spindle is way lower than the Dremel and a lot more pleasant. So far Iīve only tested the spindle with a 3S battery, but Iīm going to test it with different powersupplies and different voltage settings. But right now Iīm very pleased with the way the spindle turned out.

- Michael Hammer

you are not normal!!! not normal! att all!!!!

I had all the components under my nose and I couldn't see the solution (

great idea! thanks for sharing!

I went the super easy way today and mounted the ER11 collet chuck in the motor using the original bearings. This was easy to do but i am not sure what the life of the bearings will be but it is worth trying until i get the new mount made. Should be OK for lite duty work with low side loading.
I tested the run-out of the chuck without a collet installed and then with a 4mm ground hardened chrome plated rod.
No collet <0.01mm (more like 0.005mm) hard to measure with my set-up
Shaft 5mm from collet <0.015mm
Shaft 55mm from collet <0.06mm
So surprising this is within ebay specs for these collet chucks.

At this stage I am planing on running it off a 12V car battery, or two in series for 24V.
I will do some testing over the coming weeks and will post my findings. I am still is the process of commissioning my machine.

Gareth