Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Belgrade, ME 04917
Lots of have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Belgrade, ME. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest 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 ideal for the mill. Opting for a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Naturally, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a bonus. 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 can be found in a variety of designs from the factory. Normally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely small. Sherline also uses WW collet sets for extremely tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Many prefer ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle pass through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, most really don’t care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides the most flexibility and many tool choices. 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 variations. Just recently, they have actually added ballscrew versions for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you desire an evaluation or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Belgrade.
Taig likewise uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In fact, you can find a great deal of videos and short articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items offer a lot more stiff methods and normally more “strong” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a totally different mill or lathe. Taig also uses a great CNC ready mill and lathe. You can also choose their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. The Taig spindles have the exact 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 good thing is that they now offer a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both manufactures is the lack of serious upgrades.
Sherline offers numerous parts and accessories, but not much to make it a better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This suggests the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with really little mass means the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as great and subject to vibration problems. For example, they provide lots of 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 small. There is a comparable issue with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Belgrade, Maine 04917 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Belgrade
There are other machine options too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other suppliers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t real excellent. Lots of wind up either extremely disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded 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 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 provides constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for many years. However, they were clunky at finest and really only focused on amature usage. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. A number of which are 5 axis devices. The best servos to utilize for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brands. Combine that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have a powerful 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 grumble that the small chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On option is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open up more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you opt for bigger bearings.