ER-40 collet quality

RWanke

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Anyone familiar with the ER-40 collets from Little Machine Shop? Is their quality good enough for the average hobby guy? Thinking of biting the bullet and buying about a dozen of them. Also thinking of buying one of their Collet Chucks to match.
 
They are likely the same as the chinese ones on ebay and bangood but cost much more. I have been happy with mine.

Bangood has a full set of er32 for ~$46 right now.
 
I recently purchased a set on eBay being sold by BostarPrecision (CDCO) for use in both my mill and lathe. I am very pleased with the quality. I did purchase a non-slip wrench separately rather than use the included spanner. [ER40 Collet Chuck R8 Shank With 15 PC collets Set]
 
I do not use ER collets, but I understand that a quality nut is important to achieving good accuracy. You might get a good quality nut even if you are getting cheap collets, may be the most bang for the buck.
 
It's the female taper in the chuck that determines the accuracy, the nut simply clamps it into that taper. I've made nuts and see no diff with factory nuts. If you want a collet chuck with thru hole capability you pretty much have to machine your own to get the taper aligned with your spindle.
 
It's the female taper in the chuck that determines the accuracy, the nut simply clamps it into that taper. I've made nuts and see no diff with factory nuts. If you want a collet chuck with thru hole capability you pretty much have to machine your own to get the taper aligned with your spindle.

Just wanted to mention that the industry, along with some of us, believes otherwise. The collet acts as a wedge between the chuck taper and the tool, and the accuracy of the system relies on accurate collets and accurate nuts that apply consistent force to that tool. You can take a Chinese collet chuck (which I admittedly own) and run tests on this. High quality collets will reduce run out on the order of 2-3 times less vs cheap Chinese collets. The same applies to good nuts vs poor quality nuts. An ETM or Rego-Fix nut will easily cut run out in half vs an uncoated generic Chinese collet nut. The key reasons quality nuts are better is that they have tighter thread tolerances and friction reducing coatings or bearings that reduce the twisting force applied to the collet and this results in greater accuracy. So I think Bob is right; the nuts make a difference.
 
Hmmmm, you're probably right, I have never tested with high quality collets and nuts. The import quality is sufficient for what I do.
 
To the OP, you will do fine with imported ER-40 chucks and collets for use on the lathe. No matter how we hold the work for a first operation turning the work piece will be concentric with the spindle axis so cheaper collets are fine. It is during a second operation, where the work has already been turned and we must hold it accurately that collets really come into play. Here, you can still use lower quality collets but using a good nut is a good idea. It applies more uniform pressure to the collet and will give you all the accuracy the collet is capable of. Rego-Fix, Techniks and ETM all produce good coated nuts and ball bearing nuts that are not all that expensive; they are considered consumables that help accuracy.
 
I don't know about their ER collets specifically, but I've bought a fair amount of stuff from them, and have been happy with what I've bought.

I would put their quality on the higher end of "cheap" import stuff scale. They tend not to be the cheapest, but they also seem to try not to carry the very bottom of the barrel either.
 
Thanks for all the replies. I am a firm believer in buy once cry once, and that quality pays for itself. BUT I am a hobby guy that does nothing for $$ and use my lathe for making gee-gaws and toys and little projects friends and family may come up with. I can't justify spending the kind of money that really good quality collets would cost me. I'm even dragging my feet on spending the money on the 12 I'm thinking of buying. I have read some bad reviews on some of the E-bay collets and have been very pleased with the stuff I've bought from Little Machine Shop so I feel pretty comfortable with them. My purchase was going to include their 4" collet chuck that I will put on a backing plate. I would really like to gain the experience of making my own collet adapter for my SB 9c to learn internal threading but I don't have the right change gears to thread Metric threads for the collet nut.

Again thanks for the replies. It's appreciated.
 
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