Rapid Change ATC

[AndyUK]

Anyone had experience with these?

Opinions?

https://rapidchangeatc.com/

[m_c]

I'll be honest, and say I think some of the claims are dubious.

The torque FAQ is my biggest red flag, where they say that the "The high torque values published by ER collet manufacturers are “maximum” torque values that should not be exceeded". Those torque figures are the recommended torques to ensure maximum clamping.
Not tightening to those torques risks inadequate clamping, but whether that's an issue on low torque applications (such as your typical 2.2kw spindle), is hard to say, but I'd guess under most uses it probably won't be an issue especially with small diameter cutters. In a high torque situation like a milling machine where you have far more torque, or with larger diameter collets/cutters, it could be an issue.

I'm curious about the long term wear and tear.
From what I can see, they're relying on spindle inertia to do the slackening/tightening. Run the spindle, dump the collet into the holder, and hope it's got enough inertia to break the nut slack. Then for tightening, just run the spindle into the nut and let the spindle stall.
My concern there will be the thread ends wearing when removing, as the nut is spring loaded against the spindle, there is likely to be a few turns where the threads are jumping over each other, which will cause wear/burrs. Which could then cause the threads to gall, and likely write the spindle off. However you'd need to balance that cost against productivity gains, especially since 2.2kw spindles aren't exactly expensive.