Just curious if it’s normal for the collet to not release when you initially loosen the collar? When I first got it this was not happening. I did have a 1/8" mill break and a very small piece was loose in the collet which is about when this started. Thought there was a burr or something inside where it seats but I can see any damage. Used a new collet and no change. I recently just went through and deep cleaned everything and I used a q-tip with some isopropyl to clean inside of the spindle end and now the collet seems to grip a little more on the clean surface. The q-tip did not snag or catch on anything… Totally smooth. Was thing of lightly oiling the surface to have some lubrication but not 100%sure if that should be done??
After cleaning, I use collet oil on a Q-tip and put it in the spindle and on the collet and nut.
It is a real thin, clear oil that helps prevent the sticking
Thanks for the reply! I’ll give that a go! Was being on the cautious side of what went into the collet.
In my experience, whether or no a collet holds a tool when loosened is more of an indication of how easy it is to insert a tool rather than how well it will hold when tightened — so long as the clamping range of the collet is sufficient to allow it to be tightened concentrically.
If the collets are kept clean, and monitored for wear, and replaced when they no longer hold when tightened, you should be good to go.
We do have a basic page on this:
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Thank for the info.
So now I’m wondering if the collect being still firmly in the taper and it requiring the lip inside the nut to pull it free from the taper is how it should be? The mill still appears to be true and I don’t see and damage on anything… It definitely stays secure when just snugging the nut!
My VFD is the version just before it got updated to the ER-16 collet. Does Carbide ever do an upgrade option to leverage the bigger collet?
Thanks,
Mike
Most of my routers I use have a little resistance when loosening the collet nut and all of them are kept cleaned and maintained. This includes the 1st version 65mm spindle 1/4” spindle. There is a little resistance when releasing the collet nut, part of this resistance is the collet nut “releasing” the collet/bit tension when removing it from the shaft/wedge design.
I believe the upgrade option is to purchase the ER-16 version spindle.
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Please check in with the folks in Sales to see if that is an option — based on what I’ve seen in photos, it looks like no — the ER-11 spindles seem to have markedly different cabling connecting to the VFD than the ER-16 units.
I suspect if this was an easily done upgrade, we would have had it in our shop already.
That said, I believe the sweet spot for tooling at the torque and speeds which most of our machines can work with is 8mm (5/16") — there are a lot of tooling options in that size which seem promising — we’ll have to see what folks find to work well for them.
That lip in the collet nut is there for a reason, and about 80% of the time I need to rely on loosening the collet nut a little extra in order to to pop the collet out of the taper. And this is on an ER-20 spindle, it’s not unique to ER-11’s. That’s normal. ER collets have a more gradual taper which wedge themselves into the spindle shaft better and run truer than something like a Makita/Carbide Compact Router collet.
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