ER40 chuck and collets

Boris Ludwig

Boris Ludwig

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Just for future reference any recommendations where an ER 40 can be bought that's excellent quality? I've seen many reviews on YouTube and I'm cautious of anything Chinese or cheap.
 
Boris Ludwig said:
Get out the wallet is right! Thanks for the link.
Click to expand...

I am sure you can beat that price by looking around or waiting for a sale, I posted it because it was easy to find. Conversely you could buy Chinese from a supplier that accepts returns and check it out. If you want run out in the 1-2 tenths range ETM is the stuff, there may be others but that is only I have experience with. My feeling is if you are using expensive top end carbide end mills you want minimal runout or will pay in quickly worn endmills. If you are running bargain price Chinese endmills in HSS (which cut fine IMO, initially) then maybe lesser quality would be fine, as the cost of grabbling a fresh endmill is minimal.

For an occasional use hobbyist who is does not have deep pockets its a tough choice, for a pro making a living and can pass on the cost the high dollar tooling might make sense. I occasionally can hold very tight tolerances on my BP clone, but to do so requires some luck, fresh endmill, good collet, clean quill or collet chuck, light drag on moving axis, tightly clamped non moving axis. For down and dirty work where holding a thou or two is fine, I rarely clamp knee of mill, and work rather quickly and do not use my best endmills. If I use carbide endmills, I am very careful about runout, chatter, feeds and speeds.

If you go Chinese there are some awfully good prices on Aliexpress or Bangoood the prices are so low that if you don't like it you can just chalk it up to experience, they get here from China or Taiwan in about 2-3 weeks. Not ETM quality but they work and cost next to nothing. I am guessing the mid price stuff from Travers, Shars, MSC is a notch better than China no name but several times higher in price. It seems to me you pay exponentially more to get rid of that last tenth or two of runout.
 
I would recommend the Techniks ER40 Precision English Collet 13 piece Set if just for end mills, garanteed TIR of 0.0002. If you want to use it for work holding stock say in a lathe, than go with the metric set which has better overlap. Also Vertex which is also made in Taiwan, many of use have purchased from Rotagrip. Bisson/TMX also is another to consider.
http://allindustrial.com/techniks-04213is-13pc-er40-collet-set-1-8-1-x-1-32/
http://allindustrial.com/techniks-04206ms-23pc-er40-metric-collet-set-4-26mm-x-1mm/

My ER32 set is Iscar/ETM, my ER40 is Z Live Center which are pretty decent with a guaranteed TIR of 0.0003 and will not bust the bank.
http://zlivecenter.com/er-collets/ER40S23

In general ER collets have tighter tolerances, so at their worst they probably have a TIR of 0.0005-6. Often there is a standard level and then a precision set with tighter tolerances. The Teckniks are very good, I have a few metric in ER32 and 40. You need a decent chuck and nut, so I would also look at mid priced ~$100 R8 collet chuck if this is for a mill. Glacern, Shar's (nickle plated version), Sowa, ETM all are very good with a TIR usually around 0.0001.

Z-Live ER40 imperial set with extra collets (their set is missing a few 1/32 sizes) and the case was modified.
20160427_095034.jpg
 
I bought a BangGood R8 x ER32 collet chuck and ER32 collets, run out is very exceptable (not measurable with my indicators), the collet chuck is semi-permanently mounted in my Rockwell vertical mill.
 
i tried to open that link and my ipad went crazy and shut down cant get to start up, this is my pc. caution!!!!!!!!!
 
Boris, if you're looking for a ER40 chuck for the mill then it pays to buy good stuff like the guys said. If for the lathe then I feel that Chinese chucks and collets are fine unless you are doing second operation work that requires great precision.
 
I hear what some of you are saying about the varying need for accuracy. But on principle it would bug me knowing I paid money for a collet chuck no matter how cheap it was that wasn't at least .0002 or less. It just doesn't seem right to choose an inferior option.

But I appreciate everyone's opinion and help to save me my hard earned.
 
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