Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Atlanta, GA 30319
Many are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Atlanta, GA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract numerous people. There’s only on location to get the at a reasonable cost and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Opting for a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Of course, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a benefit. The availability of tooling for each of these designs is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get great quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a variety of models from the factory. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really little. Sherline also uses WW collet sets for extremely small work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Many choose ER25, ER32 or perhaps ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle go through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, the majority of truly do not care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers the most flexibility and lots of tool choices. 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 been available in CNC, manual and CNC ready variations. Just recently, they have included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you desire a review or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Atlanta.
Taig likewise offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In truth, you can find a lot of videos and short articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products offer much more rigid methods and normally more “sturdy” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like a totally various mill or lathe. Taig also provides a nice CNC all set mill and lathe. You can also go with 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 little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they use. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now offer a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both makes is the absence of serious upgrades.
Sherline provides lots of parts and attachments, however very little to make it a much better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This indicates the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with very little mass indicates the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as great and subject to vibration problems. For example, they offer many lathe accessories, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole has to be little due to the fact that the bearings are little. There is a comparable concern with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this restricts its use. Of course those in Atlanta, Georgia 30319 may have different needs.
There are other machine choices too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other providers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t real excellent. Numerous wind up either extremely dissatisfied or doing a great deal of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you want to go with a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or much of the hardware alternatives in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for several years. However, they were cumbersome at finest and actually only focused on amature usage. Centroid is a well recognized business manufacture of mills. Much of which are 5 axis machines. The very 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 utilizing the Acorn hardware.
What about a much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of grumble that the little chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On alternative is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you go with bigger bearings.