Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Aurora, CO 80019
Numerous are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Aurora, CO. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract lots of individuals. There’s only on place to get the at a reasonable cost and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Going with a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Naturally, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a perk. The schedule of tooling for each of these designs is excellent. 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. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very little. Sherline also uses WW collet sets for extremely tiny work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Most prefer ER25, ER32 or perhaps ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle pass through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, most truly do not care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides the most flexibility and lots of tool choices. You can find lots of evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also can be found in CNC, manual and CNC prepared variations. Recently, they have added ballscrew versions for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the internet if you desire a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Aurora.
Taig also provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In fact, you can find a lot of videos and posts describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products use a lot more rigid methods and typically more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a completely different mill or lathe. Taig also offers a nice CNC all set mill and lathe. You can likewise choose their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. The Taig spindles have the same problems as the Sherline. They are far too little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they provide. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now offer a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both produces is the absence of severe upgrades.
Sherline offers numerous parts and accessories, however not much to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This suggests the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with very little mass means the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as excellent and based on vibration issues. For instance, they offer many lathe accessories, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole needs to be little due to the fact that the bearings are small. There is a comparable issue with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Aurora, Colorado 80019 may have different needs.
There are other machine choices too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other suppliers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t real great. Many wind up either very disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you prefer to choose a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or a lot of the hardware alternatives in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it uses continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for several years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at best and really only focused on amature use. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. A number 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. Combine 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? Many complain that the little chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On choice is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you opt for larger bearings.