waterproof router

[Caseman]

Hello all. New member here with my first post. We use our Shopbot CNC router in our shop to trim carbon fiber parts. We run water on the bit to control the carbon dust. The water and carbon dust which is conductive have ruined several routers. I am trying to find something that will work for us and I thought I would inquire here. The water and possibly the carbon dust keep shorting out the routers. I bought a cheap spindle motor and that too shorted out quickly or just failed. I recently bought a pneumatic router only to find out that we need a massive compressor to make it run. I know that there are good spindles that will likely work but they are around $3k and the pneumatic router would probably work but the compressor I would need is also $3k. Does anyone have any ideas how I can do this on the cheap? We are a small shop and we do not run the CNC all the time. I just need a router that will not short out due to water. Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[Brady Watson]

Diamond tooling & a dust foot does the trick for me. No water required.

-B

[curtiss]

I understand that carbon fiber dust is a bit beyond dangerous.

Hope they are paying you well to cut it. Seems a big air compressor would be the way to go.

[scottp55]

We did a metal building for FMI to machine carbon fiber materials 25 yrs ago and they spec'ed a specialty screw that under overpressure the head popped off and let the panels fly off. They also got a good deal because they took all our crinkled, scratched, and otherwise damaged sheets, and they didn't care if the panels were scabbed together. To my knowledge the building has blown up twice and caught fire once. The guys that repaired the first blow up all got a $200 clothing allowance as it was a mess. And these guys are in the business!

[Burkhardt]

I suppose the water will take care of the flying dust, however then you must dispose of the black sludge carefully.

As for a waterproof router you could take one of the cylindrical Chinese liquid cooled spindles and shove the whole thing into a watertight shroud (a.k.a plastic tube) to protect the connector. I believe the bearings are shielded but a felt ring around the rotating shaft and a small air flow from inside should help keeping the water mist way. They are also cheap enough to replace (~$200) if the bearings get damaged.

[donclifton]

You could alway get a Chinese spindle. There cheap and are sealed. I have run one for about a year and a friend runs his in a fairly heave production environment. Without any issues.
Don

[donclifton]

The air cooled ones are also sealed, the air flow doesn't pass though the motor.
Don

[gundog]

There is a company that makes a router for routing concrete for driveways and such they have a sealed spindle of some sort. Google concrete printer it is not a 3D printer but a portable CNC router for etching concrete. Look at the pictures of the spindle they are using maybe you could pick up one of their spindles.

http://www.concreteprinter.com/

Mike