[proengines]

Hi fella's, I don't post here terribly often but thought these might be worth a mention. I bought 10 ER20 collet chucks off eBay a couple of weeks back and they arrived from China early last week.

I haven't tested them for runout but have used a couple of them with 3/16 slot drills in them and they seem to work fine. They were $99 for 10 of them, so at that price I could have tossed them out if they were no good:



Link to the auction is Here

Cheers,
Greg

[BobWarfield]

That sounds like a heckofa deal. Now tell us about their runout so we know for sure?

Cheers,

BW

[proengines]

Will do Bob, I've got a bit of machining to do tomorrow so I'll stick a dial gauge against a couple of tool shanks.

I might stock up on another 10 or 20 if they seem ok, it would save a ton of height setting.

[Jaynboom]

Wow. Please let us know.

[BobWarfield]

Hoss is pointing people this way now too, LOL.

One issue for the TTS intelligentsia--don't you want a groove on the ring for an ATC? (Wow, that sounded cryptic, but the intelligentsia will know what I mean).

BTW, I have noticed that same company has a lot of interesting toolholder deals in other sizes too.

Cheers,

BW

[Steve Seebold]

I noticed these holders don't have the lead chamfer on them thus making them a little slower at tool change time.

The 5/16 set screw holders I got when I bought my machine are like that, but you learn to adapt.

[rayoung]

The thing I'm curious about is the brokerage fees charged by DHL and if that is the only option for shipping?

Ray

[MRM RCModels]

This is good news. Waiting on the report.

[proengines]

The thing I'm curious about is the brokerage fees charged by DHL and if that is the only option for shipping?

Ray

They cost me 29.99 for shipping and were here in Australia in 5 days so a total of $13 each delivered. I'm not sure what the deal is to the US.

They look well made, they are a little longer than the TTS ones and obviously don't have the groove for the tool changer. The chamfer at the top of the 3/4 shank is plenty for changing tools manually, I didn't have any issues the other day when I used them.

I'll let you know later today what sort of runout I get with them.

[TXFred]

Can you measure the thickness and diameter of the shoulder? I want to see if there's enough room to add an ATC groove.

Frederic

[SquibLoad]

I bought a batch of these same holders about 5 months back and have been using them regularly. They work fine. They won't work in my ATC, but I have lots of odd bits for single jobs for which I don't use the ATC. No complaints, and a great price. If they made an ATC version, that would be even better. Is that design patented by Tormach?
I also would like to find an inexpensive ER16 version with TTS flange, but no luck yet.

[proengines]

I checked a couple of these collet chucks today and runout is minimal to nothing, I'd say an average of .0001" to .0002". No different to the TTS ones I have.

[GLCarlson]

$149 and change with shipping and exchange rate for 10. With a tenth or two runout, sounds like a good deal. Still available as of Sunday AM.

[dan1376]

FWIW, I purchased a few TTS tool holders from Novakon for $28ea about a year ago (which look identical to these except the Novakons have black oxide in selected areas) and they have very little runout, but found that the clamp nuts were defective. The distance from the collet retaining "lip" to the taper in the end of the nut was too close.

The collet would load/unload from the nut but I couldn't get a tool in the collet that was bigger than the nominal size of the collet. Example: a .250" EM would fit but a .257" drill wouldn't. Ended up having to replace the nuts, not the bargain I was hoping for.

I'm not saying these have this problem, but the second thing I'd check after runout was to be sure that a collet could go to the plus-side of it's holding window.

BTW, at the time, Tormach was charging $95 for a TTS holder and they were too long for my liking. The price has gotten much more reasonable and it looks like they've shortened them up a bit.

[al010964]

Thanks for the heads up, also in oz so I thought I would give them a go.

Cheers,
.adrian

[tbaker2500]

Is that design patented by Tormach?

I looked it up. Here's the patent for the non ATC tool holder:
Patent USD643864 - Milling tool holder - Google Patents

I don't see any patents for the ATC compatible version. Probably not needed with the above patent. I did find an interesting liquid-filled LED light assigned to Tormach.
Patent US20090310383 - LED NIGHT LIGHT WITH LIQUID OPTICS MEDIUM - Google Patents

[SteveKoerner]

Interesting that they went for the "Design Patent" which covers only the ornamental character of the toolholder rather than a real patent covering the functional aspects of TTS. A cost saving measure I suppose or maybe TTS already existed in the prior art.

One could work around the ornamental patent by giving the TTS ring a rounded profile instead of it's current square profile, for example. Perhaps just adding a slot would get around the design patent -- that would be ironic.

[rowbare]

I haven't see any photos of these from the shank end. Do they have the relief groove for the collet like the TTS holders?

bob

[SquibLoad]

I haven't see any photos of these from the shank end. Do they have the relief groove for the collet like the TTS holders?

bob

Yes, same dimensions.

[MFchief]

Just wanted to let everyone know, I ordered these holders on Sunday morning thru the US eBay site. The DHL man just dropped them off in Maryland 10 minutes ago!

I don't know if they have these pre-positioned in the US, or what, but I've never had a far east shipment so fast.

I haven't even put them in the spindle yet, but so far the quality looks great, finish is excellent, and mine do have the groove on top for the collet face.

Terry