OT Keyless chucks

[Justin Beebe at Folsom Tool]

We are thinking about purchasing some keyless chucks for our CNC mills. They will only be used for spot drilling, drilling and reaming. We use 40 and 50 taper tool holders depending on the machine, and cut all types of material. Max RPM's range from 3500 to 1200. Every time the keyless chuck subject comes up at work there are always some skeptics. I was skeptical about using them also, but the last company I worked for used them all the time with little or know problems. I would appreciate anyones opinion on this subject, and if anyone has experience using keyless chucks on CNC's could you please let me know brands etc...

 

 

Justin

[John13]

All mine are keyless and I've never had a problem. I got them from techniks

[Rob B]

Use keyless and don't look back. We used keyed chucks for years. Then I talked the owner into buying a couple of keyless chucks. He liked them so much he bought a couple more the next month. Good thing about keyless chucks are people that over tighten everything won't be stripping the keys.

 

My 2 cents worth

Rob

[MACHINEMASTERG]

keyless here for many years

[JNO]

Have a couple of Albrecht keyless chucks here, they work great. They come with a wrench, if you really want to tighten them.

[mcpgmr]

Justin, The ones you were using here were either Nikken or Jacobs. The Nikken chucks use a spanner wrench and the Jacobs chucks are key less. Nothing against the Jacobs but I like the Nikken myself. That spanner gives me more of a warm and fuzzy feeling that I got it tight enough. My grip just ain't what it use to be.

 

P.S. Check your damn phone messages!

[jeff]

I've never used a "good" keyless chuck so that may be why I prefer the Jacobs super ball bearing chuck instead of keyless.

[mike_f]

We use Lyndex keyless here, never had a problem. A little pricey, but "it takes money to make money". HTH

[k turk]

i'll throw in one more positive - keyless is the way to go. i would agree with mcpgmr, i like the extra little twist the spanner provides.

[?Mark]

Keyless or not, they're only good for holding an indicator these days, or a quickie setup for a cheap part or fixture...other than that, we don't touch them here anymore...

 

jm2c

[k turk]

so what do you do with an odd sized hole? do you use a range collet and / or circularly interpolate everything? seems like that may be difficult for very small holes.

 

k

[?Mark]

quote:

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seems like that may be difficult for very small holes

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True, we don't do many holes under .05, but everything above is held in a collets (er's, xt's...)

The smaller the run out the better is hole position, accuracy and tool life and that's the advantage of collets; they're fool proof and with chucks it takes a hand...

[specprogrammer]

We use both, but I like the keyless better. The best ones are integrated. I have had a keyless chuck on a seperate base run out, but I have never had an integrated one run out.

[Justin Beebe at Folsom Tool]

Thanks everyone for your replies. Sounds like mostly positive input. We will probably end up buying a few and see how they work out, then buy some more if we like them.

 

Justin