Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Cedar Rapids, IA 52401
Lots of have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Cedar Rapids, IA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, appeals to many people. There’s just on place to get the at a reasonable cost and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Choosing a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Of course, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a perk. The accessibility of tooling for each of these models is outstanding. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a variety of designs from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really little. Sherline also uses WW collet sets for extremely small work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Many prefer ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle go through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, the majority of actually 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 flexibility and lots of tool choices. You can discover many evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also come in CNC, handbook and CNC prepared versions. Just recently, they have actually added ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the web if you want a review or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Cedar Rapids.
Taig likewise offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competitors. In fact, you can discover a great deal of videos and posts describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items offer much more stiff ways and usually more “strong” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like an absolutely various mill or lathe. Taig also offers a great CNC ready mill and lathe. You can also select their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the exact same issues as the Sherline. They are far too little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they use. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now use a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both produces is the lack of severe upgrades.
Sherline uses lots of parts and accessories, however very little to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock usages bad quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This indicates the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with really little mass suggests the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as great and subject to vibration issues. For instance, they use lots of lathe devices, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole needs to be small because the bearings are small. There is a similar problem with the mill. You can just utilize ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401 may have different needs.
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other suppliers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t genuine great. Lots of wind up either extremely dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you prefer to go with a CNC machine, your best option is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or much of the hardware options in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for several years. Nevertheless, they were cumbersome at best and truly just targeted at amature use. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. Much of which are 5 axis makers. The very best servos to use 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 evaluations of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill utilizing the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Many grumble that the little 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 built in. This can open up more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you opt for larger bearings.