Collets and tooling source(s)

[Mick Simon]

I have a good bit (30 years) of experience in industrial CNC, mainly routers, and all the support items necessary to make them work. I have almost zero in the smaller CNC routers for hobby and light industrial applications. A friend of mine has (t)asked me to help him install and train on new router for his shop.

The vendors I'm familiar with for tooling are not cheap, but they were very good quality. My question is this - while looking for an inexpensive source for ER20 collets I see on Amazon that they can be had for $30 - $50 for a set of 10, 15, 20 collets. Anyone try these? Are they any good at all or would I risk ruining the bearings and/or bits?

Thanks in advance.

Mick

[Bruce Page]

My only concerns would be how tightly controlled are the diameters and how true the bit runs. I wouldn’t expect a very long life from them.
I buy my ER25 collets from Precise Bits.

[David Bassett]

... I see on Amazon that they can be had for $30 - $50 for a set of 10, 15, 20 collets. Anyone try these? Are they any good at all or would I risk ruining the bearings and/or bits? ....

I'm no expert! When I was looking for a tooling for a project several years ago, the hot ticket among the high-end hobbyist guys was Techniks by SYIC. They're more than your talking, but reported to very good quality. (Spec'd a little looser, but actually measured as tight as these guys were used to from the big names at their "day jobs".) For even less money, the Shars products also got good reviews from more casual users and I'm not sure you really need metal work tolerances when working in wood. (Of course you definitely want low enough runout you don't burn out bearings or explode bits.)

[Steve Peterson]

I bought a cheap set in inches and another metric just to have them. However, most of my work uses only 1/8" and 1/4" sizes. I may have used the 4mm collet once.

I recommend getting high quality collets in the sizes that you expect to be using all the time, possibly 1/2" and 1/4".

[Brad Shipton]

The collets I buy are $26 each +- and I have something like 10 or 20. I am not sure this is the $500 part of the CNC equation I would skimp on.

[Mick Simon]

Thanks guys. My impressions seem to be correct. We supplied Techniks with many of our machines. Seem to be a good bang for the buck. Figured I'd better ask since I'm on the other side of the equation now.