Went to fit carbide 3D v bit into matika this morning, the vbit is 1/4 inch 6.35mm.
The collet has 6mm hole, the other collets that came with matika are the 3.125 an 7mm.
Where can I get the correct collets for the 1/4 bits ?
Thanks
You can either get the 1/4" Makita collet (look for reference 763637-1 on amazon/ebay/anywhere), or order a fancy high precision collet from Elaire (ref MRP-2500 on their collet page)
(I did both, the Makita collet is quite fine, the Elaire collet is superb)
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Thanks Julien
Ordered one of amazon, I had not expected them to be so readily available.
I have been using the 3.125mm collet until now and one bit I had used was 6mm thinking it was 1/4”
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It’s the opposite direction which is the problem — we can’t get the 6mm Makita or DeWalt collets in countries which use 1/4" tooling — anyone know what determines if a metric country uses 1/4" tooling? I haven’t been able to discern a pattern.
Hi Will.
Must admit it threw me for 10 minutes as could not figure out why the carbide bits would not fit.
Also the fact I had ordered a surface tool from ebay and that fitted ok.
Vernier gauge checked and understood what was going on.
Re your 2nd part no idea, but from my situation metric is much easier to work with having done the change over in the 70’s.
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We try to remember to mention it when it comes up on support, but haven’t been able to come up with language at: https://docs.carbide3d.com/shapeoko-faq/will-shapeoko-work-with-220-volts/ which doesn’t lead to further confusion.
Glad you puzzled it out!
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I think you need to assume that UK is 50:50 so the the matika comes with imperial collets (no idea why but it does looking on amazon uk site) where as mainland europe is metric so they will come with metric collets. Fact learned today 
Odd one out is mainland Europe still use imperial sizes for plumbing threads.
and car tyres are imperial
Feel like hitting head against a wall at times. Wont do any good nor make me feel better.
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Car tire and wheel diameters are in inches (except for a few rare exceptions), but the tire widths and heights are in mm.
The world-wide standard thread for tripod mount (cameras, scopes, etc.) is 1/4"-20UNC, which I assume is because it originated in the US and everyone else adapted to it.
The US auto industry converted to metric (SI system) in the 70’s an 80’s. Fresh out of school I started in metric in the auto industry and later switched to the medical equipment and computer industries in the 90’s and couldn’t believe they were using inches. This was a case of the older (auto) industry being ahead of the younger ones. A lot of that had to do with globalization of auto manufacturing, I’m sure.
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Makes one of my jobs fun, as we see vessels constructed on six continents. Pipe and tube come in true metric, as well as the metricized imperial. Structural steel and plate are similar in many applications, especially on vessels built in the far east (less so from Europe), where the print says 6mm, but the plate is 1/4", or the other way, and the structural may be imperial or metric, or metricized imperial, or imperialized metric. (I could go on… I beat on this with my engineering students) Always fun.
This is why I like ER collets, and other similar styles. They are designed to close enough that, for example, 1/8" (3.175mm) and 3.00 mm are both fine with a 1/8" collet, and 1/4" (6.35mm) and 6.00mm are both fine with a 1/4" collet.
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There was a true story going around British Aerospace many years ago when they were building Concorde supersonic aircraft and it was arranged that the French one and the British built ones would meet up and park nose to nose. The engineers were very worried that the heights would be different.
Thankfully both sides got it right and the 2 noses touched perfectly.
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