Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Alameda, CA 94502
Numerous are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Alameda, CA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract lots of people. There’s only on location to get the at an affordable price which’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Choosing a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Naturally, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a reward. The availability of tooling for each of these models is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get very good quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a variety of models from the factory. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely small. Sherline also uses WW collet sets for extremely small work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. A lot of choose ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle go through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, many truly do not care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers the most versatility and lots of tool options. You can find many reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also come in CNC, manual and CNC prepared variations. Recently, they have included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the internet if you want an evaluation or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Alameda.
Taig likewise offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In fact, you can discover a great deal of videos and posts describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items offer far more stiff ways and normally more “strong” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like a totally different mill or lathe. Taig also provides a good CNC all set mill and lathe. You can likewise go with their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the same issues as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they use. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now provide a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both manufactures is the absence of major upgrades.
Sherline provides lots of parts and attachments, however very little to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock usages bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This suggests the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with extremely little mass implies the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as great and subject to vibration issues. For example, they use numerous lathe accessories, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole needs to be little because the bearings are little. There is a similar issue with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Alameda, California 94502 may have different needs.
There are other machine options too. You can likewise purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other providers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t real good. Many wind up either really dissatisfied or doing a great deal of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you want to choose a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or many of the hardware choices in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it provides consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for several years. However, they were clunky at finest and actually only focused on amature use. Centroid is a well established business manufacture of mills. A number of which are 5 axis makers. The best servos to use for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brands. Integrate that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have an effective machine. We will also produce evaluations of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Numerous grumble that the small chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On choice is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open up more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you go with larger bearings.