Heat shrink holders vs. balanced holders

[90rsgnuguy42]

We are picking up a couple of new machines and they have 14000 rpm spindles. I know we need to balance the tools and my fear is that management/ownership thinks that just buying balanced tool holders will take care of this. My questions are these: Are balanced tool holders just as good as heat shink tool holders (or is the difference in cost easy to justify)? and if heat shrink is considerably better...what makes it better. I am trying to make a case for someone else to open the pockets fairly deep so I like to be correct about what I'm recommending.

[Namliek_J@TheeCircle™]

It all depends on what type of cutting you are going to be doing and what materials, etc...

 

The big advantage to heat shrink tool holders is rigidity. This will be the most rigid set up that you will get.

 

The downside, you need a heat shrink machine also and these can be expensive depending on the type of options you recieve with them.

[90rsgnuguy42]

Most of the work we do on these machines will be small (relatively) electronic work in aluminum. One of the guys here said one of the shops he's worked in in the past bought a heat shrink machine that worked well for about $5k. If the only advantage the heat shrink offers over balanced tool holders is improved rigidity it doesn't sound like a case I want to try to make. My main concern is the spindle life. If balanced holders will be enough to insure reasonable spindle life I'm good with that.

[Namliek_J@TheeCircle™]

For the type of work you are doing, I think that the balanced holders will work fine.

[mold100]

both have thier place, i used to not like the heat shrink but i love it for our Sodick now, accuracy at 36000 rpms is amazing.

[Rick Henrickson The Boeing Co.]

Hey mike we can take you and john boy up to global and we can show them the bene's rigidity, balance, and clearance are three good points

[90rsgnuguy42]

Hey Rick, let me get back to you on that. John is on vacation right now but I think it's something we need to talk about. Although it's not like any programmer should have any input to a machine acquisition or tooling!

[Psychomill]

A balanced assembly is the critical point and not just a balanced holder... I've seen plenty of unbalanced heat shrink set ups in my time. A pre-balanced holder (shrinker or not) simplifies the process.

 

Rigidity of a shrinker is debateable but spindle life is only one benefit. Other positive effects of a balanced assembly are improved surface finishes, higher feed rates, improved tool life, improved feature accuracy, improved repeatability, etc. Shrinkers have their place and I use a ton of them but there are plenty of other holder types out there that kick a$$ all the same.

 

40 tapers and under are more forgiving at 14k rpm. 50 taper and up may have some shorter effects of an unbalanced assembly. At least your management is considering balanced holders... many don't even bother with that.

[90rsgnuguy42]

True Psycho the spindle life is only one benefit but it's one with a good attention getter...a big out of pocket price tag and downtime! As far as increased feed rate our parts are small enough that the machine rarely ever gets to the full programmed rate anyway. And as far as management/ownership is concerned we are making our parts to tolerance (and they are fairly close tolerances here) just using balanced holders right now. We have some horizontals here now that we have to use balanced holders for that have 12k spindles on them so they're not unfamiliar with the need for balancing I'm just wanting to make sure that we're considering all things before the machines hit the floor. Thanks, for the input.

[Jaz]

Balance, ridgidity and concentricity are comparable. Heat shinkers are simpler and have much better clearance and more choices of lengths.

 

You are 'only' doing 14K and with small tools, check out Iscar's line of ER32 heat shrinker tooling.

[90rsgnuguy42]

Thanks Jaz...exactly the kind of info I'm after

[dareman]

We just got the RegoFix powergrip system and it seems to work great so far at 15k. I'm running a 3/4" Mitsubishi APX3000 3 flute cutter at 15k and 350 IPM full engagement with 1/4" depth of cut with no problems at all. I know its not what your looking for but we do a ton of small stuff also and we got this tooling mainly to run with the 4th axis to give us more reach and better rigidity at high speeds. It also changes the tools out much faster with no danger of getting burned... Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Here is a link for you.

http://www.rego-fix.com/pg/

[?Mark]

quote:

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RegoFix powergrip

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Love that system.

[MIL-TFP-41]

I like Lyndex/Nikken's SK collet series. Balanced to 24K or something....

[ak762]

quote:

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We just got the RegoFix powergrip system and it seems to work great

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We used RegoFix with Mikron up to 40k.

No problem, very reliable

[Chris Rizzo]

If your running small tools you might have made your decision right there...generally .1875 - .250 is about as small as they go. I just had to do a bunch of calling around (and waiting) to find an extended length .1875 shrinker.

[Jaz]

Iscar makes some shrink fit holders down to 1/8" or 3mm that load into standard ER20, ER25, or ER32 collet chucks.

[Brian B 74]

We use those shrink fit collets (ER25) and they work pretty descent. But for high accuracy, I use Haimer 4mm holders. Most of the cutters I use for finish our mold cavities range from 0.5 to 1mm in diameter. We originally just used standard Lyndex collets, but it was a pain having to indicate each tool (slightest bit of run-out and the tool would break). The Haimers we use are consistently .0002" or better T.I.R. run-out.

[Josh Kinney -Elite Engineering]

I use shrink fit on routers. No machine, just a propane torch to change the tools....

[kickworm]

I agree with the choice of rigo fix tooling. very accurate balanced and rigid. My question to you would be if you are you tooling in the smaller diameter range such as micro tooling wouldn't you rather have a machine with a higher rpm spindle?

[mchin-pilot]

Another very nice balanced tool holders you can find are "BIG DIASHOWA" from Japan.

 

They are very well made, collets are very precise.

 

Shrink fit has 1 very unique advantage of "Narrow Reach" which leaves no question to think about the collet type holders if the application needs such.

 

Cheers