Replacing a Spindle Motor

Bob, I'm taking for granted (given your research into making a change) that Oliver would not give you a warranty replacement on your less than a year spindle motor?

Video of the new spindle motor at work:



I don't have everything set up (wires and mounts) just how I want. I just set it up enough to do a complete carve. I want to be able to hook up an original motor as well when I want, so I'll have to figure out how to make it work with both methods. But so far so good.

The hold downs I made by using 1/4" bolts that are 1 1/2" long, you can use hex or screw head bolts. Next you would need to get nuts for the bottom (to fit in the table slots) For those you need square nuts, so that they pull evenly on the table. You will need some 1/4" fender washers and some hex head nuts for the top of the hold down. I put a hex head nut on and thread it to the top of the bolt, and add a fender washer, the thread on the square nut flat side up on the end of the bolt. To use them you need some scrap wood pieces the same thickness of what you are carving, slide the above assembly into the track with the fender washer and nut at the top. Place the fender washer down onto you carve board and at the same time put your scrap piece on the opposite side, you can then hold the top of the bolt and thread the nut above the fender washer down until it is tight. The wood piece one seen in the picture works on the same principle, I just cut a triangle shape from scrap and put 2 holes back near but not too close to the corner, and you would need longer bolts for those to allow for the extra thickness of the wood clamp. You still use a scrap under the opposite side of that one as well. It is handy to have a variety of diameter fender washers and to have at least a couple of the wood type clamp so that you can mix and match your clamps to keep them out of the pathway that your carve is going.

I do still use the supplied clamps but only as a "detention" at the outer edges. It is my belief that using the upper screws on the supplied clamps to bite down and push against the wood puts enough lateral pressure on the wood to make it want rise up in the middle.

Rick, yes the results are fine however it is somewhat a pain because you need to be there when the carve is finished so that you can shut down the spindle motor. I can see that this solution has limitations in that there is no bearing set up to take lateral pressure away from the spindle shaft, which I believe will lead to premature wear on the motor bearings. I do have an additional mount for the stock motor which could be modified to accept a bearing to cradle the spindle down the road, I just have not measured for what size bearing.




EDITED: After doing several carves with this spindle it is a bit under powered (12,000 RPM max) which leaves a lot of cleanup work on the pieces I have carved so far. I did not realize how much until I started doing the finish work on the pieces. I did receive a replacement motor from Oliver, BUT the motor they sent out to me was obviously a used one that likely was involved in a return of some sort because it makes all kind of noise and fluctuates in speed while it is just sitting there and running, so it is basically useless to me. So I am on to the next spindle motor hack.....

Any of these look familiar ?