Quiet spindle vs. DeWalt 660?

OK, I know. I know. There’s detail here on which spindle to use. I just thought I’d get a specific comparison down.

I saw this make, with the quiet spindle, and I think it looks great: http://www.thingiverse.com/make:202266 Granted, most of the reasons it looks great is because of an attention to detail that will always escape me, but it’s using this quiet spindle: https://www.inventables.com/technologies/quiet-cut-spindle . But Ryan likes the DeWalt, so I’m trying to compare the two.

Quiet spindle:

  • Expensive, $80 + $35 speed control + $35 24V power supply = $150.
  • Quiet?
  • Possibly under powered for aluminum milling? OK for acrylic, wood, etc, eh?
  • 1/8" collet, and 1/4" with $7 more in parts or so.
  • Mounting seems rock solid, because it’s not meant for your hand.
  • Electronics need an enclosure, but I already need one for the ramps board.

DeWalt:

I’m planning on keeping this in my garage, and I have a wife and a kid, so quiet could be pretty nice. I don’t want to hurt the son’s ears, and I don’t want to be super limited on when I can play, because I don’t have a ton of free time. Also, I’m going to admit this, on the Internet, I’ve had a poor track record with decisions when around really noisy spinning blades of death. Is that just me? That said, I probably won’t be able to run even the quiet spindle in the middle of the night…

I am leaning towards the DeWalt, with the option of upgrading later. Maybe I should just build one with the common part/BOM, get most of the excitement out of the way, and decide if I want to make another, smaller one for precision laser and PCB work, or a larger one to make entire houses. I’d rather spend a spare $100 on a freakin’ laser beam, I guess.

Anything I’m missing?

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I believe the desalt dw660 comes with 1/4 and 1/8 collet if I am not mistaken.

You are correct sir. I didn’t notice that.

The other spindles are really nice. I’m just always compelled to save the money. I am constantly trying to get my venders to get me a good price on those things in bulk. It’s shipping them here that is expensive, big and

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It seems like you got cut off mid sentence :slight_smile:

Any feedback on how much the franken speedo you made reduces the noise?

The more I think about it, the more I think I’m going to go with the DeWalt, and see how it goes. $60 isn’t a huge mistake to make on the way to buying something that’s $150. Plus, I’ll have a backup, and get my feet wet seeing what’s really possible.

Sorry, must have been too much coffee or I got distracted by something shiny.

The speed control helps a tiny bit, but I pretty much just use it to run at about 80%. The shop vac I think it probably the loudest thing I have running not the dewalt.

I found a video recently that put me off those quiet cut spindles. Seems to be a bit of an issue with runout due to how they’re made.
Here’s the video

I’m hoping to start out with a Bosch 300W router that I have here and see how that goes. I’ll probably upgrade to something like the DeWalt after I see how that goes.
The DW660 isn’t common over there but I might import 1 and use it with a transformer or maybe get a Kress.

That video was really interesting. I’m not sure I have as high requirements as that guy, but I can see how having those plastic parts wear out could really make you pull out your hair a few months down the road. They definitely don’t seem like the “silver bullet” that I once thought they were.

I’m not sure what he would say about the DeWalt either though. My guess is that there are a lot of ways to mount the DeWalt to have a similar amount of play. Who knows, maybe the DeWalt is doing a bunch of similar things to keep costs down.

I actually own a Porter Cable 6902 router, which is 10A, so does that make it 1200W? That’d be too big for the MPCNC, right? It’s physically large, 3.5" dia. 7.5 lb. 1/2" or 1/4" collets. Definitely loud.

I found another video where this guy was considering the DeWalt, and got a free quiet spindle from Inventables.

TL;DR He thinks it’s worth the money… But I’m sure he’s not biased…

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HHMMM!! Interesting videos. I was considering the Quiet Spindle as an eventual upgrade but now I am thinking twice about it.

Thanks for posting.

Same for me, I was dead set on getting one of those until I saw the teardown. There are other spindles available on Aliexpress and Ebay that hopefully are better though.
I’ve seen brushed and brushless ones on there in various wattages but I’m slow to try one as there’s not much info on them.

I have a Dremel Model 395 and a RotoZip tool. I assume either of these can be used?

If you can find or make a mount you are good to go.

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I used my dremel when I first got my MPCNC up and going…I regret that decision to this day.

The dremel is terribly underpowered for use as a spindle. Even at VERY slow speeds I wound up burning out the brushes and damaging the dremel physically (the bushings/bearings they use are a joke - mine is now nice and wobbly.)

A cut that took me almost an hour with the Dremel I can now run in about 15 minutes with my Dewalt. And the dewalt doesn’t get permanently damaged in the process :wink:

Admittedly my Dremel was already 15 years old…which was why I didn’t mind risking it. But one week of use on my machine (about 5 hours of use total) caused more wear on it than those previous 15 years combined.

 

I have run the Dewalt 611 on my previous MPCNC (the bigger brother to the 660), and now run a 400w brushless spindle with hall sensor. I can say that with the 400w spindle I am not missing any power nor do I need any higher RPMs. The spindle is much quieter, and although the cutting noise is just as loud, the sound profile itself is much more pleasant and is not ear splitting. I spent $200 on the spindle and it came with a single ER11 1/8" collet and the driver, I also had to purchase a 48v power supply that ran about $45. My only complaint is that the shielded spindle wires are a bit short (long enough for my needs but make sure your machine is not too big).

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Is there a chart of db difference? Most of the time my 2 year old is in the garage with me and I feel the DW660 is too loud for him. I would like to change to a quieter spindle for his sake.

I ended up getting a DeWalt. I also bought some earmuffs for the two (now three) year old. I can’t find the link, but they were $15 or so on Amazon. The but and the van will make nose too.

Because the nose is relatively constant, I can use the machine during nap time. His bedroom isn’t above the garage, do maybe that helps.

Also, this is probably my first post. The dates for registration and posting are the same. Blast from the past!

Your first post was almost exactly 1 year after I started this March 15th, 2015, and You have been helping ever since. Almost 2 years later…need some sort of seniority badges and discount codes…

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Well, it’s a bit too late, but if it helps anyone in the future, here is my opinion.

I have both kind of spindle, a quiet brushless 500w and a dewalt like (mine is probably not as good as a dewalt though).

In my opinion, if you don’t care for the noise, the dewalt is much better. More powerful, more robust, and most important of all: it spins way faster. Dewalts or similar stuff runs at 25-30 Krpms while the brushless ones are often about a third of that speed.

Running faster actually seems to help quite a lot with all kind of materials.

The only downside is noise, so if you have space, go for a Dewalt and build an enclosure.

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