My old Chinese CNC router was cutting away a piece of plywood to make a housing for a supercapacitor power unit when I heard a crunching noise and a squeak, with smoke. The spindle of the router had finally died, after several months of decline.
Today I received my new spindle, a German one (Kress 1050 FME-1). Fear not stereotype, the German tool is definitely better than the original. It took a bit of twiddling to make it fit, including the 3D printing of a bright orange excentered collet to fit the narrower mount of the new device.
I had to lift up the work table by 30mm, which I did with crudely sawn MDF pads, not the job I am the proudest of… The plan is to eventually cut an aluminium plate mount to drop the spindle by 30mm and fit the table back to its original position.

Anyway, by the end of the day I had cut the three parts for my supercap battery housing. tomorrow I am off to Flowering Elbow’s open day near Carmarthen, where maybe it will all come together!