Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Beckley, WV 25802
Numerous are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Beckley, WV. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, appeals to numerous people. There’s only on location to get the at a sensible price and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Choosing a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Naturally, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a benefit. The accessibility 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 designs from the factory. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very small. Sherline likewise uses WW collet sets for extremely small work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Most prefer ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle travel through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, many really do not care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers one of the most flexibility and numerous tool options. You can find many evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also come in CNC, handbook and CNC ready versions. Recently, they have added ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you want a review or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Beckley.
Taig likewise offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In truth, you can find a great deal of videos and short articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items provide much more rigid ways and usually more “sturdy” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like a completely different mill or lathe. Taig likewise offers a great CNC all set mill and lathe. You can likewise go with 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 design they provide. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The great 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 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 begin with, they headstock usages poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This implies the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with really little mass implies the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as good and based on vibration problems. For instance, they offer numerous lathe accessories, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole needs to be little because the bearings are small. There is a comparable problem with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this limits its usage. Of course those in Beckley, West Virginia 25802 may have different needs.
There are other machine choices too. You can likewise 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 end up either extremely dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Outstanding upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you prefer to opt for a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software application 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 constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for several years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at best and truly just focused on amature usage. Centroid is a well recognized industrial manufacture of mills. Much of which are 5 axis devices. The best servos to utilize for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brand names. Combine 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 utilizing the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of grumble that the small chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On option is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you opt for larger bearings.