I have an X3 I purchased from grizzly a little bit ago but I'm having some issues with using collets. There is a notch in the spindle that slides down the side of the R-8 collet (sorry, not too clear on the terminology for that stuff). The chuck and cheapo face mill I got from grizzly fit in there fine, but all the collets I've tried using won't fit (R-8 from various companies including buck, and some from enco), the slot in the side of them is just too small. So I'm wondering:

First off, is this a standardized thing and if so is it the X3, or much more unlikely the collets that are at fault?

Or I'm guessing it isn't standard in which case I'm wondering if I should approach it by attacking the collets, or the X3. Of course with a lot of work I could machine all 25 of the collets I have to fit. On the other hand, as much as I hate to modify the machine, this seems like a horrible inconvenience and I'm wondering how hard it would be to remove the spindle and just file down the notch a bit - I figure its not all that useful anyway. And any chance anyone has any info on how I'd do that? I'd hate to damage the spindle taper trying.


And while I'm at it, one other unrelated question. Lets just say... totally hypothetical of course... some idiot happened to run the ballnut off his screw from CNCFusions X3 Premium ballscrew kit (despite all the dire warnings), and well... his balls dropped (sorry, couldn't help it). Does anyone know where I'd go about buying another one of these ballnuts (all I could gather is the ballnut says 1065 on it), or if there's any trick to actually fixing this one up?

Thanks guys!