Re: 1KW, 30KRPM Router as a Spindle/Motor?

In my opinion I don't think this is a hard decision. Go for it.

I wouldn't worry about the metal chips. If you are worried about it
then perhaps you can get some kind of filter media, nylon mesh,
whatever to help with that. I use my Dremel all the time on metal and
it gets along fine. Drill motors, ditto. I know crap gets in there.

Maybe you can rig a vacumm hose in there to suck out the chips as
they come off. You are dry cutting yes? Consider mist coolant? Not
sure any of that is worth it.

In terms of bearing wear. As long as you buy something in the $300.00
range then you are getting routers with quality sealed ball bearings
that are desinged for commercial trade work. I have an old Black &
Decker router that I used every day for hours for years. It still
works like it did.

Runout - Well, I used my routers for Formica / P-Lam triming among
other things. They don't have much run out really. At least they are
tight enough to allow for flush triming a p-lam edge with out even a
nick on the adjoining surface. For what you are doing I suspect you
are going to be OK with the run out. If you are worried about it, buy
one, test the run out before you use it. Return it if it's not what
you want. Try another one. Repeat until you find one you like. Or
contact the factory with respect to the runout specs.

In the final analysis, what are your good alternatives really? A
relatively precise, high speed, industrial motor with a collet for
$300.00? Yeah I agree, good value, why not? Perfect? No. But good
enough.

My two cents.

Thanks,
-jd