Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Bayou Goula, LA 70716
Numerous are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Bayou Goula, LA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, appeals to numerous people. There’s only on location to get the at a sensible rate which’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Choosing a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Obviously, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a benefit. The accessibility of tooling for each of these designs is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a range of models from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very small. Sherline likewise provides WW collet sets for extremely small work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. The majority of choose ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle go through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, a lot of really 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 flexibility and lots of tool choices. You can find many evaluations 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 ready variations. Just recently, they have actually included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the internet if you want a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Bayou Goula.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competitors. In fact, you can find a great deal of videos and short articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items use far more stiff methods and generally more “sturdy” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a completely various mill or lathe. Taig also offers a great CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can also go with their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the very same problems 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 great thing is that they now offer a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both produces is the lack of major upgrades.
Sherline uses numerous parts and attachments, however not much 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 little. A spindle with really little mass implies the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as good and subject to vibration issues. For instance, they use numerous lathe accessories, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole needs to be small since the bearings are small. There is a comparable concern with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Bayou Goula, Louisiana 70716 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 offer Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t genuine good. Many wind up either really disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded 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 and hardware is far better than Mach3 or a number of the hardware choices in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for many years. However, they were cumbersome at best and really only focused on amature use. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. Many 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 brand names. 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 much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of complain that the small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On alternative is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open up more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you choose larger bearings.