80mm Spindle Update Log - Week 14

Still waiting for the Z-20…

Have PwnCNC spindle and got the 220V installed. Just waiting for 1F part and trying to baby my wimpy Makita in the meantime. (Couldn’t stomach buying a 3rd Makita just to get by.) They warn us regarding the Z-20 lead time but it still hurts!

So many weeks of waiting and waiting.

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I’m in the same boat Jim. In my 13th week of waiting but haven’t heard anything. Hoping it will come next week, but not going to hold my breath!
I too have my new spindle all wired and ready to go. So trying to be patient. I know how your feeling.

:slight_smile: Waiting for the new baby to arrive is never easy. :slight_smile:

My purchase date was Dec 3, 2022. I’ll let you know when it finally gets here so you can know when to expect it.

Hoping it’s soon for both of us. I’m kind of at a stand still until then. Want to design a dust shoe but don’t know what my clearances will be so am waiting…

LOL I gave up on Mikita routers I now use a $75cdn Benchmark router has held up just as good as my $150cdn Mikita, I bought a second one as a spare as I await my turn to go to an 80mm spindle.

Regarding dust shoe, I ended up going with PwnCNC V7. It’s a huge 4" that sits in front. I figure that I"m going to hate having to pull out a flash light and looking between the spindle and hose to watch the early cuts but once I get into ‘production’ that keeping the dust off the 1F (as well as the rest of my workshop) and out of my lungs will be worth it. Tried a ‘rear mount’ dust shoe that gave me great visibility but sucked when it came to sucking.

Haven’t seen the Benchmark router but not surprised it’s better than the Makita. I hope the 80mm spindle works as good as I hope. The 220V prep and the wait time is tough. I’m not quite at a standstill but close because the Makita just can’t hack what I really want to do and the folks that say you can surface almost as effectively with a flat 1/4" end mill because you can run it so much faster are having an experience very different than what I see.

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I just joined your ranks! My 80mm spindle arrived today… I am waiting now for the VFD that I want to become available (should be next month). I have some wiring and set up to do before I am ready to convert.

It sounds like you guys are waiting on a Z-20 vs the Elite upgrade (that will likely include a Z-20)… I haven’t decided which way to go on that. I am still waiting to see what the trade in offer is to upgrade my x-50 to an Elite… which is supposed to be out this month.

I am interested to hear why you guys decided to go ahead with the Z-20 vs Elite upgrades… expected cost difference? expected timeframe difference? happy with the original controller? you use a different controller?..

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This Saturday will be week 18 and I’m still waiting. Just a heads up regarding lead time.

A technique i use is to put the v7 on the spindle as high as it goes, then mount it like 1/8" below the bottom of the mount. Then turn the pressure clamp so it closes against the hose and opens to the right. With the right tension set you can tighten it and it won’t move, or you can loosen it and move it up or down with light pressure.

With the top clear acrylic its not very effective to see thru, even with a light, so i have a small gap in the brushes on the front that i can see just enough thru. Word of advice, order more brushes for variable heights and my longer one that came with, the back is hardened/ deformed/slightly melted due to the collet nut.

I am interested in an elite upgrade but it comes down to cost.

The z20 has some real and tangible advantages for extensive 3d carves at a fair price.

The masso upgrade of the elite is likely to be quite pricy. It may not be worth the cost of an upgrade depending on what it comes in at. It all hedges on cost. Much easier to justify less than 300 bucks for the z20 than probably 2k+ for the elite upgrade. There are features I would like from the masso (namely and mainly support fpr a rotary axis that is a bit more plug and play than the buildbiotics) but at a certain point a prosumer user like a onefinity fan has to step back and wonder of they shouldn’t just go all in and buy a bigger and more fully featured machine instead.

For instance the masso is objectively better in most if not all metrics. But does it matter to someone who isn’t doing production work like me? Is there any real advantage to closed loop steppers to someone like me, who has never had the problem they solve?

That said I’m a likely buyer for the elite upgrade but it really does come down to cost. I think the onefinity is a very fairly priced machine that has served me very well, but spending an extra 2k to be able to do faster surfacing is probably a hard sell if thats all a casual like me would get from it.

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Echd,
I am in the same boat as you… I can live with the original machine with a Z-20 and a X-50 stiffy (approx. $500 upgrade)… I believe the Buildbotics controller is the weakest link and I would prefer to change over to Masso… but I have learned to work with the Buildbotics controller… so, I’m going to wait until June to see what OF offers. If they do offer and Elite upgrade for $2k, that is a delta of $1500 over the minimum upgrades that I’m going to make anyway… I’ll pull the trigger on that… but there is some threshold of pain over $2k where I’ll just stick with the Buildbotics. Take Care

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Well… Tomorrow will mark 19 weeks of wait for the Z-20. The lead time is quoted as 14 weeks. So, we are over a month overdue and no heads up from them at all. I emailed an inquiry just to get an update but its been nothing but crickets from them. 1F has usually been pretty good about responding, so this is a little surprising and disappointing.

I think my PwnCNC spindle is starting to rust just sitting there. Also, the spindle/VFD have only has a 6 month warranty and that means that I’ve burned up half my warranty waiting on 1F. If you’re upgrading, take this into consideration.

The Makita and the Buildbotics/Firmware are the two weak links with the legacy 1F machines, that’s for sure.

Z-20 arrived today. 21 weeks from order to arrival. That’s a little over 5 months but now they say it’s 2-4 weeks. Must say that it does look good and beefy. The 220V spindle makes the Makita router look like a Dremel tool and overwhelms the original Z slider. Now I’m hoping that PwnCNC gets the v7 for 80mm mount out soon. After all this time, now I’m waiting for updated dust collection boot that came in months ago but had to return it. It’s always something…

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Hey Jim,

@PwnCNC have the v10 as a v7 replacement for the Z-20 assembly under construction now

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Thanks, Aiph. Daniel (and/or Clinton) must be busy as they aren’t being as responsive as they were. And I’ve asked a question four times of them now (included with other questions) and that is: I am going to need new bracket arms for the v10/80mm/Z-20 combo, yes?

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Try posting on their facebook group. Maybe they’ll be more responsive on their own controlled forum.

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Shouldn’t need anything extra from them. V10 is spindle mounted, so no bracket arms. Just sized to 80mm by and your hose size

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Great catch, ChrisS. Thanks!

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Hello Jim,
Sorry… i haven’t been able to keep up with the forums as much as I want.
That is about to change very soon :wink: Along with other awesome things in the pipeline.

Reach out to us at support@pwncnc.com and we’ll every answer needed in a much more timely manner.

The v10 is a spindle mounted boot which requires no bracketing and fully compatible with the 80mm z-20.

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