On Friday 29 January 2016 00:29:36 Bruce Layne wrote: > There are definitely inch sizes of ER-16 collets on eBay, both in sets > (by 16ths or 32nds), or individually. > > I like to Keep It Simple, but I felt it was worthwhile to complicate > my collet strategy to hopefully make shop life easier on me. In each > ER series, (I have ER-11, ER-16 and ER-20), I have inch size collets > for the standard inch sized tool shafts. For the mill, I have a 50 > position tool rack with a lot of Tormach Tooling System compatible > ER-20 collet holders, and the standard shafts use the matching > collets. I also bought a couple of more in each standard inch size > for standard shaft tooling I might need for a job that's not in the > tool rack. But for drill bits, I bought 4-5 of each metric size > collet and store them in an organizer box to be used for the vast > array of drill bits I may need which can be any size. The metric sets > overlap with fewer collets than the inch collet sets. > > It's not as complicated as it sounds. I don't convert the decimal > drill sizes to millimeters. I just poke the drill into the collets > until I find the right one, usually on the first or second try. > > My CNC router collet strategy is similar, but simpler. I don't have a > lot of ER-11 collets because I have less tooling on the CNC router and > there are no nice collet holders to maintain Z height for quick tool > changes, unfortunately.
Huh? All of the stuff I might use to make a pcb can be obtained with stop collars so the stickout is within a thou of 1.000". Stuffing them into a tormach style er32, stopping against the collet has worked very well for me. I'd say the repeatability is within 0.001 or better. What I am doing recently is to change the whole tormach style holder since I bought a bag of the Chinese versions and a box of 1/8, 1/4 collets, and I have all the lengths in the tool table for each size of tool. What I need to do next is drag out a 7/8" Forstner and make me some tooling racks, I have too many laying around that could roll off the shelf. I did make one for the R8 collets, but only spaced them on 1" centers. Ooops. > I have a metric set for all of the odd sizes, > and a couple of 1/8" and 1/4" collets. I paid for hopefully lower > runout for the 1/8" and 1/4" collets on the router because the spindle > spins at a much higher speed and I'm more likely to be using small > cutting tools in the CNC router. Others must have a similar > metric-inch collet strategy because there are ER-11 collet sets on > eBay with 1-7mm collets and 1/8" and 1/4" collets. > > If you're using arbitrary size drill bits for your projects, you don't > want the Goldilocks problem where one collet is too big, and another > collet is too small, and there is no collet that is just right. Get a > metric set with 1mm spacing and you should be good. > All the way down to a #80 in the 1mm collet I assume. :) Most drill chucks can't close on a #60 & I wind up chucking a pin vise, whose runout is often north of 1/16". I recently bought a small metric tap set just because it had a nice looking tap handle I could knock the T-bar our of and chuck. But its so poorly made the runout at the tip of a 3mm tap was at least 5mm. To say I was disappointed means you didn't hear the 5 minute monologue discussing geneology of the maker when I discovered that. :( Thanks Bruce. Cheers, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Site24x7 APM Insight: Get Deep Visibility into Application Performance APM + Mobile APM + RUM: Monitor 3 App instances at just $35/Month Monitor end-to-end web transactions and take corrective actions now Troubleshoot faster and improve end-user experience. Signup Now! http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=267308311&iu=/4140 _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
