Spindle warm up

[Kyle Stapleton]

We have an air drill and I was wondering how long after the c5 can the spindle sit not running (some of our drilling is 10-15min) before you need to warm it up again?

[coryatjohn]

If the spindle feels cold to the touch, run another warm up. Personally, I only do this if the machine sits idle for several hours.

[Burkhardt]

I have a Chinese 2.2kW/3hp spindle and nobody told me to warm it up when I bought it. So I started using it always at operating speed right away. Obviously I don't know yet if that may reduce the service life but so far so good after 2 years of moderate use. Maybe the tolerances of the China stuff are anyway sloppy enough that the temperature expansion does not matter. When I heard about the warm up routine I did some Internet search and apparently there are different opinions about the need for such a routine.

For that matter, my (originally water cooled) spindle is now cooled exclusively by the dust collector air stream from the outside. That high air volume does not allow it to warm up anyway. It barely gets hand warm after long use and I hope that is not too cold for the bearing grease.

Anyway, I would not sweat 15 minutes or so.

[dlcw]

If my spindle (2.2hp) is idle for more the 2 hours, I warm it back up again. It's been doing great for almost 5 years now.

[Kyle Stapleton]

Thanks all