Ping Gunner: High speed spindle

How accurate does it have to be? What kind of duty cycle and life between services? How about necessary horse power?

I use a Bosch Colt Router ($100 apx) to do stuff like this.

Precise Bits (Think and Tinker) has precision 1/4 and 1/8 collets for it, but a bushing should be adequate for whacking brushes and other things. All I have to do if I don't crash them is replace brushes every couple hundred hours. I tend to run it from 24K to 30K, but if I recall the low end is around 8K.

Here it is in action with my home made mount. (I have two machines setup with them.)

I blame your shop cats. They pawned it for catnip money.

Far too loud, but thanks.

The two-legged ones?

Don't tell me that you let the cats play with power tools!

That's 30,000 RPM cutting fairly aggressively in aluminum. .07 per pass if I recall. I admit the motor is most of the noise though. Still, dial it back and the noise drops dramatically. Since I use it as a CNC spindle in an enclosure, and usually just watch it from the office on camera the noise is not an issue for me. Even so, step back five feet and you can easily hold a conversation.

Alternatively and with a lot more precision a Taig spindle is capable of

10,000 RPM and you can use any motor you want. Their mills typically come with a 1/4HP brushless motor that is very quiet and should last indefinitely with very minimal maintenance. A2ZCNC sells the Taig ER 16 spindles independently.

Of course there are all those high speed water cooled spindles from China available on Ebay. I believe that Keling Inc has started stocking a few upto 2.2Kw here in the US.