Has anyone found or had any experience with a half inch precision collet? I got a little trigger happy with a McMaster-Carr order and found a 3/32 10 degree tapered endmill that I didn’t realize had a half inch shank.
Hitachi M12VC, Makita RF1101 both support 1/2” collets.
I’ve got a Hitachi sitting next to the machine waiting to be put into action next weekend.
Precise Bits and Elaire Corp. make larger collets for both the trim routers — 8mm is the largest size as noted by @AngusMcleod though there seems to be a 3/8" option for the Makita:
It seems to have a greatly reduced clamping area, and hasn’t had much testing yet (was mentioned on the unofficial Shapeoko Facebook group) — most likely best used for dial indicators and so forth.
I’ve seen a few with the Hitachi (where I got the idea). With the new wide Makerslide, it should be fine.
Yes. I have a linear Z so it won’t be on the stock Z axis but I plan to write a post with all my upgrades once I do them. My linear Z upgrade was done with this particular upgrade in mind.
I have the Hitachi mounted on the newbie slidder along with a 270 oz motor. It works great. I also added the Muscle Chuck and am very,very happy with it. Fumbling around with two wrenches got to be a pain and the ease of using the Muscle chuck made up for the cost. The muscle chuck works with 1/2" tooling by default and for other sizes there are many choices.
. Notice the ER11 and ER 16 tool holders that I fashioned from ER tool extensions and locking collars.
I use that regularly for quick roughing when I do not care for runout.
@Clyde, looking at such long bits/extensions I hear Saint Bob Warfield’s voice: “rigidity decreases as the third power of length”. What looks like ~4x higher stickout here results in ~64x weaker setup. In order to pull this off, you have to drop your removal rates significantly to compensate for deflection.
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Perhaps so, but these holders are much thicker and made of stronger steel than the tooling that these holders are able to hold. In other words the bit will flex before the holder does. Furthermore, I chopped off about two inches of the shaft and added a steel locking collar around the shaft.Thus far I haven’t had any issues with the holder an in fct we used these on large commerical machines without issue. again, the tool would deflect or snap before the holder. With the D.O.C. of the x-care I haven’t seen the problem.
I’ll look into doing a full thread later (incl the other upgrades I did). Still need to carve on it before posting.
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Looking forward to the thread. Have a Dewalt 618 that I’d like to use but it’s also a few lbs heavier. Definitely curious how the added weight performs.
Also watching this thread with interest. Was about to strengthen my X but now it looks like it won’t be necessary.
Went ahead and made my upgrade thread for those that didn’t see it:
No carving results yet because of an issue with the Musclechuck but I didn’t see any noticeable difference in the X axis when I put the new router on. It appears to be level across the span and no noticeable sag.