The spindle I have is 65mm. The DeWalt is 68.3mm. I used a few wraps of heavy brown paper to “bulk it up” to fit the mount.
I chose liquid cooling because the cooling fan in an air-cooled spindle or router is the main source of noise. If I have ear protectors on, I can’t tell mine is running until it starts to cut.
As for power, 800w is just over 1hp.
I control the start/stop and rpm using the control on the VFD inverter box. The VFD has inputs for start/stop and PWM rpm inputs, but I haven’t used them yet.
Thanks Ken, I see your point, and what about the weight? it seem quite heavy compared to the kress. Also it is your spindle powerful enough to carve soft aluminium?
All of those spindles have been used on the Shapeoko 2, the direct predecessor to the X-Carve — the CAD column lists diameter or links to mounts where known, and the hole spacing for spindle mounts has not changed.
Hey everyone, thanks for all the opinions… it was very helpful!
As a final note I think I haven’t yet decided which spindle to get but I’ll order the x-carve this week and solve this in parallel.
Based on your experience: Which support is going to be more useful to hack an spindle in it?
-If I decide to go with the Makita, I am guessing the one for the dewalt 611 is the one.
-If I decide to go with a chinese spindle or the Kress, which one is basically more compatible with hacks? Should I get an extra Z-plate?
It is heavier, but if you do the stiffening mod described numerous times it is fine for the 800w spindle. Remember that the 800w spindle uses a 1,500w inverter. The reason is the spindle is a three-phase motor, and feeding the inverter with single phase 110 or 220 like you have in your home shop means you need excess inverter capacity to compensate.
I haven’t personally used it for aluminum but I’ve seen videos where they cut aluminum with a lesser spindle, like this one:
This one is missing too