Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Carter, MT 59420
Many are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Carter, MT. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, appeals to many people. There’s only on place to get the at an affordable rate and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading 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 reward. 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 been available in a variety of models from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really small. Sherline likewise uses WW collet sets for extremely small work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Most prefer ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle travel through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the 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 the most versatility and numerous tool options. You can find lots of reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise can be found in CNC, manual and CNC ready versions. Recently, they have included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the internet if you want an evaluation or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Carter.
Taig also uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competitors. In reality, 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 “strong” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like a completely various mill or lathe. Taig also provides 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 same issues as the Sherline. They are far too little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they provide. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The good thing is that they now provide a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both makes is the absence of major upgrades.
Sherline provides many parts and attachments, however not much to make it a much better machine. To begin with, they headstock usages bad quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This suggests the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with extremely little mass means the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as good and subject to vibration issues. For example, they provide numerous lathe accessories, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the pass through hole has to be little since the bearings are little. There is a comparable problem with the mill. You can only utilize ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Carter, Montana 59420 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Carter
There are other machine choices too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other providers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t real great. Many wind up either very disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you want to go with a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far better than Mach3 or much 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 requirement for many years. Nevertheless, they were cumbersome at best and really only targeted at amature usage. Centroid is a well recognized commercial manufacture of mills. A number of which are 5 axis makers. The best servos to utilize 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 a powerful machine. We will likewise produce evaluations 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 little 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 alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you opt for larger bearings.