Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Braidwood, IL 60408
Numerous are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Braidwood, IL. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest many people. There’s only on location to get the at a reasonable price which’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Choosing a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Obviously, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a bonus. The schedule of tooling for each of these designs is outstanding. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a range of models from the factory. Typically ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely small. Sherline likewise offers WW collet sets for extremely small work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Many choose ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle pass through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, a lot of actually don’t care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers one of the most versatility and many tool choices. You can discover lots of evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also been available in CNC, manual and CNC ready versions. Recently, they have included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the web if you want a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Braidwood.
Taig likewise uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In fact, you can discover a lot of videos and posts referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items provide a lot more rigid methods and usually more “heavy duty” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like a completely different mill or lathe. Taig also provides a nice CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can also opt for their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. The Taig spindles have the very same problems 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 nice thing is that they now use a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both makes is the lack of serious upgrades.
Sherline offers lots of parts and accessories, however not much to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This implies the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with extremely little mass implies the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as excellent and based on vibration issues. For instance, they use numerous lathe devices, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the pass through hole needs 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 Braidwood, Illinois 60408 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Braidwood
There are other machine options too. You can likewise purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other suppliers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t genuine great. Lots of wind up either really disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Outstanding upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you prefer to opt for a CNC machine, your best option is the Centroid Acorn. The software 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 continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for many years. However, they were clunky at finest and truly just aimed at amature usage. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. Much of which are 5 axis makers. The very 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? Many complain that the little chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On alternative is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you choose bigger bearings.