"David Billington" wrote in message
...
John R. Carroll wrote:
"Bob La Londe" wrote in message
...

"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...

"Bob La Londe" wrote in message
...

I picked up a Taig 2019 mini mill recently, and have been using it to
do
some CNC engravng while I learned how to use my software and get a
feel
for my machine. Mostly I used some 1/8" shaft stuff to do some
engraving.
Today I decided it was time to make some tight fitting solid t-bolt
nuts
and rails to fit in the table. Something a little better than the
flat
plates that came with the mill. Also helicoiled to a common size so I
could pick up a variety of different length screws to use with
clamping
fixtures.

Thinking everything would be honky dory I sliced some 3/8" aluminum
plate
on the table saw to 5/8" wide strips So I could mill it down to 1/2"
to
fit the table grooves. Then I got it clamped up on the mill table
with a
couple welding clamps. I used the shaft of an 1/8 mill point to get
the
bar straight roughly to the table travel, and proceeded to swap
collets
to use a 1/4" flat end mill to rough material off of one side only to
find out that my 1/4" shaft mill point would not fit in the 1/4"
collet
with the collet snapped into the nut. Then I tried with the 3/8"
collet
with a 3/8" shaft end mill and got the same results. The ER16 is what
is
supposed to be used in this mill, and the collets where clearly
labeled
for the size I was trying to install and use.

Am I missing something? If I took the collet out of the mill head nut
I
could force the shaft in, but then it would not snap into the nut at
all.
I measuered the shafts of the various mill points I was trying with a
caliper, and the 3/8 measures .375 and the 1/4 measures .250 so I know
its not that, but hey I had to check and make sure right.

You have metric collets.

JC

Mislabeled?


Probably not. I've seen, and have, 10mm collets labeled "3/8", but they
aren't actually.
you probably have a 6 and 10 mm collet.
measure the ID and see.

JC


A .375" cutter not going into a 10mm (.393") would seem odd, makes me
wonder if the collet isn't seated in the nut properly. I have a set of
ER16 upto 10mm and each has a range of 1mm ie 9-10, 8-9 etc. I don't know
what an inch ER16 collet series would have as a range. When I use them I
pick the collet based on the open size and the cutters always fit fine
when the collet is inserted into the nut.

I just got a new Taig ER16 nut from Super Tech and a set of Taig Collets.
The collets from Taig work in the old nut and the new nut, but the generic
collets also work just fine in the new nut. That tells me that there is a
difference between the old closer nut and the new closer nut as well as a
difference between the collets themself.

While the collets I had may not have been perfect, I have to also conclude
that either there was a problem with the original closer nut, or there is a
great deal of variance in their finished closer nuts.

Now I have two nuts and two sets of collets.

This is why I bought a new closer nut as well as Taig collets. Now I know.

Bob La Londe
www.YumaBassMan.com