Power Route Kit and Aluminum

[kamikazejoshua]

Searched the forums the best I could on using the Power Route Kit on Aluminum and found some information, but not much, along with a video from the website. I would mostly be using 6061 1/8" sheets to cut out various pieces and put holes into the plates.

I am actually part of a school district and was awarded a grant to purchase a CNC Router. I was going to go with a Chinese Manufacturer which I have seen good things about but the district refuses to make a purchase through China. This seems like a good American alternative from what I have seen for around the same price point.

Question is I have seen that you can attach spindles onto it to replace the router easily enough. I would like to attach a larger spindle than what is provided through the website, maybe up to a 2.2 kW spindle. I would really like to keep the noise down and have the power since this would be used mostly with aluminum. I am new to this however and attaching the VFD from the spindle to the control board looks difficult and I haven't seen any information on here about doing that. I don't think I saw anything on the resources page on the website either.

So questions are, do people tend to get good results using this for aluminum along with any tips and any information out there on hooking it up to a larger spindle or a spindle at all?

Thanks

[Bruce]

Oct 9, 2018 12:47:52 GMT kamikazejoshua said:

Searched the forums the best I could on using the Power Route Kit on Aluminum and found some information, but not much, along with a video from the website. I would mostly be using 6061 1/8" sheets to cut out various pieces and put holes into the plates.

I am actually part of a school district and was awarded a grant to purchase a CNC Router. I was going to go with a Chinese Manufacturer which I have seen good things about but the district refuses to make a purchase through China. This seems like a good American alternative from what I have seen for around the same price point.

Question is I have seen that you can attach spindles onto it to replace the router easily enough. I would like to attach a larger spindle than what is provided through the website, maybe up to a 2.2 kW spindle. I would really like to keep the noise down and have the power since this would be used mostly with aluminum. I am new to this however and attaching the VFD from the spindle to the control board looks difficult and I haven't seen any information on here about doing that. I don't think I saw anything on the resources page on the website either.  Using a VFD can be done and I have just retrofitted my Carve King with a 1HP spindle motor and a 1.5KVA VFD (slightly oversized for the 1HP motor) I'm guessing the Power Route could handle a larger spindle motor but you may want to check the weight capability of the Z axis with Derek. 3HP motor is pretty large. I have done quite a bit of research on VFDs and spindle motors but like I mentioned I just got my rig going, so far so good.

So questions are, do people tend to get good results using this for aluminum along with any tips and any information out there on hooking it up to a larger spindle or a spindle at all?  There are guys using the Carve King, Power Route and even the M3 for machining aluminum.  I haven't done any metal work myself but the Power Route will handle aluminum with no problem.  You may want to add a coolant system to the Power Route system but that can also be added to the CNC shield controller with no problem.

[Derek the Admin]

Check out the posts by Ray on his experimental aircraft. He’s been building one with the Power Route cutting aluminum and praises its capabilities.

The Power Route is the most capable machine for the money in my opinion. Earlier this year we moved into a larger shop and all the industrial equipment was at the new shop waiting for the electricians to finish the 480 and 240v drops to them. I wanted to keep some production running and actually ran a fair amount of 1/4 aluminum plates on the Power Route and it kicked tail.

[kamikazejoshua]

Thank you Bruce and Derek. I will probably start with the router, and when I become more familiar with the machine, I will look into a spindle probably. And I will also search for the aircraft, which sounds cool anyways.

Thanks!