Lost $600 on a cheap probing system and learned a hard lesson about tool setters

I bought an off-brand tool setter off eBay for about $250 thinking I was being smart saving money over the $800+ name brand ones. It worked okay for about two weeks before it started giving false readings on my Haas VF-2. One morning I crashed a $120 endmill because it told me the tool length was half an inch shorter than it actually was. That mistake cost me the cutter plus the time to redo the part and a broken workholding clamp. I spent another $350 on a used Haimer 3D Taster from a shop closing down in Detroit and it has been rock solid for over six months now. Has anyone else had bad luck with those cheap import tool setters or did I just get a lemon?

3 comments

3 Comments

william_garcia16d ago

Bought the cheap one once. Now my wallet and my endmills are both lighter.

kelly63815d ago

Yeah cheap endmills are rough but honestly it's the collets that get you if they're off. A bad holder setup will eat tools way faster than the bit itself being budget.

torres.thea11d ago

God it's so true though haha. Sunk so much time and material into a job once before I realized my cheap collet was the real problem, not the brand new tool. That little wobble you can't even see by eye just eats everything alive.

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