whispering... when not cutting

Well said Ken. When doing 3D carving with a 3mm ballnose it is STILL whispering.
I went for the Air cooled...less hassle..no water no pipes no pumps...and still whispering. ;)

Reviving an old thread here to share my new improved water cooled spindle setup.

I went to Fry's Electronics and purchased a "LEPA Exllusion 240" liquid CPU cooler. It's an all-in-one dealy with a radiator, 2X muffin fans, and a reservoir with a CPU heat exchanger. Cost was about $130.

All I had to do to make it work with my spindle was cut a tube between the CPU heat exchanger/reservoir and the radiator and install 2X tubing adapters to step down the diameter from the cooler tubes to the tubing on my spindle. I epoxied the radiator and reservoir to my Y-car. Power comes from the 12v power supply brick I have tucked inside the Y-car.

It's been about 9 months and everything is still working. The only upkeep necessary is blowing out the dusty radiator with compressed air every so often.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/586/32...a7fbefb6_c.jpg

Philip,

I was wondering if a CPU cooler would work. Thanks for posting this.

Are your muffin fans mounted as shown? Also, have you measured the temperature of your spindle after it's been running for awhile (say with a temperature gun) to make sure it's staying cool enough?

It works great! I've run the spindle for hours and it barely gets warm to the touch. Putting my hand next to the radiator, I can feel warm air. The setup works incredibly well.

The fans are mounted exactly as shown. I am holding it in the photo because I hadn't expoxied the radiator yet, but that's where it ended up.

10L bucket 50/50 water/antifreeze , never had a heating problem on 10+ machines with these spindles

I have a similar set up that has worked for a couple of years now, I do keep a backup pump on hand, the first one (from china) I had died in 3 months (but it was super cheap):)

Thanks for the coolant recipe I was wondering what needed to be used.