Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Anchorage, AK 99524
Numerous have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Anchorage, AK. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract lots of people. There’s just on location to get the at an affordable price which’s GlockCNC. Upgrading 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 also a perk. The schedule of tooling for each of these models is exceptional. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a range of designs from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very small. Sherline also offers WW collet sets for extremely tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Many choose ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle travel through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, many really don’t care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides one of the most versatility and lots of tool choices. You can discover lots of evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise can be found in CNC, manual and CNC all set variations. Recently, they have added ballscrew variations for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you want an evaluation or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Anchorage.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competitors. In reality, you can discover a great deal of videos and short articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products offer far more rigid methods and generally more “sturdy” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like an absolutely different mill or lathe. Taig also uses a great CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can also select their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. The Taig spindles have the exact same issues as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they provide. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now offer a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both makes is the absence of severe upgrades.
Sherline offers many parts and accessories, but very little to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This means the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with extremely little mass means the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as excellent and based on vibration issues. For example, they offer numerous lathe devices, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole has to be little due to the fact that the bearings are small. There is a similar issue with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this restricts its use. Of course those in Anchorage, Alaska 99524 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Anchorage
There are other machine choices too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other providers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t real great. Numerous wind up either really dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Outstanding upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you want to choose a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or much of the hardware options in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it uses constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for many years. However, they were clunky at best and really only focused on amature use. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. Many of which are 5 axis makers. The very best servos to use for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brand names. Integrate that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have an effective machine. We will also produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of complain that the small chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On choice is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you choose bigger bearings.