Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Camden, AL 36726
Many are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Camden, AL. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest lots of individuals. There’s just on location to get the at an affordable rate and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Opting for a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Obviously, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a bonus. The availability of tooling for each of these designs is exceptional. For 5C collet sets, you can get great quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a range of designs from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really small. Sherline also offers WW collet sets for really small work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Most choose ER25, ER32 or 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, most truly don’t care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers the most flexibility and lots of 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 prepared versions. Recently, they have actually added ballscrew versions for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the web if you want an evaluation or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Camden.
Taig also provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In reality, you can find a lot of videos and posts referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products offer a lot more rigid methods and usually more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like an absolutely various mill or lathe. Taig also offers a great CNC all set 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 small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they provide. We will do an evaluation 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 drawback with both produces is the absence of serious upgrades.
Sherline offers numerous parts and attachments, however very little 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 small. A spindle with very little mass indicates the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as excellent and subject to vibration issues. For instance, they provide lots of lathe accessories, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole has to be little due to the fact that the bearings are little. There is a similar concern with the mill. You can just utilize ER16 collets and this limits its usage. Of course those in Camden, Alabama 36726 may have different needs.
There are other machine choices too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other providers that use 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 want. Outstanding upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you want to go with a CNC machine, your best option is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far better than Mach3 or a lot of the hardware choices in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it uses constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for many years. However, they were clunky at best and really only targeted at amature use. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. Many of which are 5 axis devices. 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 an effective machine. We will also produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill utilizing the Acorn hardware.
What about a much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of grumble that the small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On alternative is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open up more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you choose bigger bearings.