ER16 Collet Chuck for Unimat M12X1 Spindle

[mister-pete]

Oh that's nice , great job I have tried quite a few times but I cant get a good run out … I tried buying cheap motor mounted er16 and er25 chucks and drilling and tapping using my unimat but can't find the right setup I dont have and other way to do it. is there a place I can buy one ready made I realy would like both ER16 and a ER25.

[greenie]

Question that has to be asked about now is, "Will the small 1/5th of a horsepower motor be able to allow you to do even a very small cut into something as soft as 10/20 material ?"
It sounds good in theory that you can MOD one of these mighty midgets, but they still have a very weak small motor.

I have three U3's and they WILL NOT stand up to any punishment like even using a single point Fly Cutter into steel.

I use mine for Brass, Acrylic, Aluminium and Wood and I'm still very carefull of what's happening with the motor, strain that motor and let that magic smoke out and there is NO BLOODY WAY KNOWN, you can get that smoke back into the motor.

If you want to abuse the "Mighty Midget" go right ahead, as it's you money you'll be spending, when you make the smoke come out. :-)

Remember the old saying of -------- different horses for different courses !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mister-pete]

Yes I know the original motors are week so I ordered 2 Dunkermotoren Gr 63sx55 24 v Dc industrial motors and 2 Pwm DC 10-55v max 60A Dc motor speed controls... 1 for the mill and the other for the lathe. They develop around 3x the torque of the original motors and 100% duty cycle so they will not smoke up nor burn out. I will send in som pics and write up my modifications

[Paul Jones]

mister-pete,
I have tried buying accuate M12X1 threaded ER-16 collet chucks for the 3" swing Unimat but all were way out of the specs I needed for a 0.0002" runout. This is why I made my own chucks. Follow the directions for how I made the ER-16 chuck. Also buy the best ER-16 collets {mines are made by Techniks). These are expensive to be +/- 0.0001" to +/-0.0002" run-out but worth a once in the lifetime investment.
Paul

[mister-pete]

Thanks for the instructions but all I have is my two unimat sl they are not good enough to do the job nor my knowledge in machining skills I do some machining but not equipped to do angles and high precision

[greenie]

Mister-pete, it appears that Paul Jones's hobby is trying to make ------------------ "a silk purse out of a sows ear".
The Unimat SL was never intended to be able to create parts for NASA, as the ways are just those sloppy bars, a U3 is a far superior lathe to the SL.
Great that HE can get run-out down to one tenth of a thou, but what use is it when you try to make something, you'll never be able to hold your work to such extreme tight tolerances, as the lathe will NOT let you do so.

These Unimat lathes were never intended to be able to hold such tight tolerances, they were designed for just making bits for hobby work.
They are exceptionally good at making tiny bits for models, with quite reasonable tolerances, but nowhere near what Paul Jones is advocating.

If you want to hold such extreme tolerances, then maybe a larger lathe, that has been designed for such tight tolerances, WILL be in order. :-)

[mister-pete]

I understand That I will never be able to machine parts the very tite tolerances... that said I ‘am trying to bring my setup to new day usage more modern technologies... Paul Jones inspired me in the way he modified his great little machine . I’ m trying to adapt my little lathe to do some very nice pieces with tooling I use every day and I have really good Er25 and Er16 collets but the collet holders got 0.010 to .020” runout I tried like 6 times to modify ready made collets to fit my lathe & milling... Where I work a few guys tried to help but we use CBC mills and I just run master cam programs we have a lathe but it’s a CNC also and no one has done any jobs with angles and treading ... I am close to my retirement and wanted to do some projects .... So I need good tooling. I ‘m willing to pay good money for a good set of collet holders Er 25 & Er16

[mister-pete]

Sorry for my writing my IPhone has changed some of my words... I’m mostly French speaking

[mister-pete]

I am not keen on using my drill chuck nor my 3 jaw chuck to hold my end mills

[Paul Jones]

I use the Unimat SL 2000 for machining small stainless steel 316 parts held in my home made ER16 collet chuck. Slighting tightening down the cross and z-axis movement lock screws makes a big difference in holding the machining tolerances. I prefer my 12" swing lathe for machining in the 0.0002" tolerances but the Unimat can do very well if you have the patience.