ER 16 or 32 tooling wanted

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Mr Ron
Posts: 2126
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2009 12:36 pm
Location: Vancleave, Mississippi

ER 16 or 32 tooling wanted

Post by Mr Ron »

My Sheldon 11" lathe has a #5 MT. What do I need to adapt an ER chuck to a # 5 MT? I think I have seen # 4 MT chucks, but not # 5.
Mr.Ron from South Mississippi
Mr Ron
Posts: 2126
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2009 12:36 pm
Location: Vancleave, Mississippi

Re: ER 16 or 32 tooling wanted

Post by Mr Ron »

I did a search on E-bay and found an ER-40 chuck with a # 5 MT shank for $72+ change. Sounds like what I want, but it is made in China. Would I be going wrong on a China made chuck; they claim .0006" precision. I would still have to get/make a drawbar and a set of collets.
Mr.Ron from South Mississippi
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liveaboard
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Re: ER 16 or 32 tooling wanted

Post by liveaboard »

Unless you have "pro shop" budget, everything's made in China...

I bought four er40 collet chucks for milling machine for $12 each; maybe a bargain because they're in Europe and 5/8" instead of 16mm .
Are they made in China? Surely.
No name, no place of manufacture, they work for me.
Home shop budget.
My old Polish lathe also has MT5 spindle bore. I bought a center for it, nothing else so far.
collet holder 1.jpg
collet holder 2.jpg
earlgo
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Location: NE Ohio

Re: ER 16 or 32 tooling wanted

Post by earlgo »

Hah! I bought one of the ebay Chinese #3MT ER20 chucks for my lathe. It was worse than the old 3 jaw chuck I was trying to use for small parts. I ended up regrinding the id taper of the chuck to get it straight. FINALLY it was useable, but the ER20 collets were not concentric either. .0006 tir must refer to centimeters, not mm. I bought a Kennametal collet just to prove to myself that the chuck was finally good. I don't want to believe that all the ER chucks are bad, but that one sure was. By bad, I mean it was out .004in on a hardened tool shank.
Your experience may be better, one can hope.
--earlgo
Before you do anything, you must do something else first. - Washington's principle.
jcfx
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Location: NY

Re: ER 16 or 32 tooling wanted

Post by jcfx »

Any reason why you want to to use a MT taper ER collet chuck ?
That would restrict the length of spindle pass through, there are flat backed ER style collet chucks,
all you would need is to make a adapter plate.

I'm sure you've looked into 5C collet chucks, no drawbar needed, but pretty much the came deal in terms of money,
Bison is gonna cost you , everything else is a crap shoot.
pete
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Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2009 6:04 am

Re: ER 16 or 32 tooling wanted

Post by pete »

There's at least two main reasons in a home shop to use ER's for work holding. You want better concentricity than a normal 3 jaw can deliver, and/or better grip, less deformation on delicate parts. Secondary might be small runs of the same diameter parts. ER's are always going to be much slower to use than any 3 jaw. With a MT in the spindle and a drawbar it's fairly easy to use them, but you instantly lose that hollow spindle option that could be used on longer parts. For myself that's just too valuable to give up for no real gain and possible losses just like Jcfx said. Using that MT 5 your total run out will be a combination of the spindle taper condition and run out, the ER chucks MT 5 shank run out, any run out in the chuck itself, and finally what each collet itself has. Yeah maybe some of it will help cancel each other out, or more likely not. YouTube has probably a few dozen videos showing some really poor run out numbers with off shore collet chucks and collets, and none that I've seen yet bragging about how good there's are. Again for myself it's pointless to use anything that's adds cost, is slower to use, and less accurate than what I already have.

Every tool or part holding collet system invented has fairly high costs associated with them because of the precision the better manufacturers guarantee as the maximum allowable. Off shore or not, I finally learned without any of those guaranteed numbers you have zero idea of what your going to get and just like Earl found. And let's just say there's a few manufacturer's willing to fudge the numbers a bit even when they list them. Over the years I've read (mostly on the U.K. forums) lot's of posts stating the cheapest off shore tooling is more than good enough for anyone with a home shop. I've yet to read one stating the same where they've actually checked what results they were getting. My guess is there spending a whole lot more time adjusting and compensating for just about everything there using. My first set of cheap ER 32's were I thought certainly not good enough to reuse when I moved up to a BP clone. A few were ok, but I had some varying between .002" to almost .003". I've got a couple of 3 jaws and a few drill chucks that average just about half that. My Bison ER 40 chuck and collets will all do well under the .0005" they guaranteed. But I could have bought 4-5 off shore chucks and collet sets for what they cost. I also don't automatically trust any manufacturers claims and do double check what I've bought.

Only you can properly assess what's usable in your shop Ron. But if it were me? I'd use one of the fairly cheap plain back ER chucks, https://littlemachineshop.com/products/ ... -421559299 with a back plate to fit your lathe spindles mount. That one is a 40 size, but there's other ER sizes made as well.Then machine both to use a shop made set true type where the chuck body can be adjusted on the back plate for small amounts of run outs that may show up in the chuck or collets. You could with a lot more work machine your own direct fitting ER chuck and there's again YT videos showing exactly that. Getting low run out collets at any reasonable price is still the biggest issue. The only mid priced decent manufacturer I know of is this one. https://www.maritool.com/ER-Collets
For lathe part holding though, 5C beats any ER set hands down. A half decent range of additional tooling for 5C plus the collets are going to cost multiple times more than the very best set of ER's will. And there's a lot 5C can do the ER's simply can't. And to use ER's, the part length being held has to be at least 3/4's of the length of the collet or the run out numbers go way up. There's also a size cut off on the total range a ER collet can hold, the larger 25, 32 and 40 series can hold tool shanks or parts within about .039" (1 mm). If I remember the numbers correctly, the ER 8, and 16 size have half that holding range. I dunno, maybe there available, but MT 5 would now be a fairly uncommon milling machine tool taper verses say a R8, 30 or 40 taper. Finding a MT 5 to fit your lathe with a ER 16 chuck end might be pretty tough. There's also an extra gain with ER's that there dual usage and can be used on a mill with just an addition of the correct collet chuck and shank. That's the main reason I bought the 40 size even though it's really too big for any R8 mill.
Mr Ron
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Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2009 12:36 pm
Location: Vancleave, Mississippi

Re: ER 16 or 32 tooling wanted

Post by Mr Ron »

Thank you all for your responses. You have convinced me that I really don't need an ER chuck. I will stick with my 5C, but upgrade to Royal or other quality collets. I also have my 4 jaw when required.
Mr.Ron from South Mississippi
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