Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Chickamauga, GA 30707
Numerous have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Chickamauga, GA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest lots of people. There’s just on location to get the at a reasonable cost and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Going with a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Obviously, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a bonus. The schedule of tooling for each of these designs is exceptional. For 5C collet sets, you can get very good quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts can be found in a range of models from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely little. Sherline also uses WW collet sets for very small work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. A lot of prefer ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle travel through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, many truly do not care for the MT1 and barely 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 reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also been available in CNC, handbook and CNC prepared versions. Just recently, they have actually included ballscrew variations 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 Chickamauga.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In fact, you can find a lot of videos and posts referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products offer far more rigid methods and generally more “sturdy” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like an absolutely different mill or lathe. Taig likewise uses a great CNC all set mill and lathe. You can also select their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. The Taig spindles have the very same issues as the Sherline. They are far too little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they offer. 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 offer a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both manufactures is the absence of severe upgrades.
Sherline provides lots of parts and attachments, but not much to make it a better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This implies the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with really little mass means the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as great and subject to vibration problems. For example, they use numerous lathe accessories, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the pass through hole has to be small due to the fact that the bearings are little. There is a similar problem with the mill. You can just utilize ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Chickamauga, Georgia 30707 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Chickamauga
There are other machine choices too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other providers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously 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, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you want to opt for a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far better than Mach3 or many of the hardware choices 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 standard for several years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at finest and actually only focused on amature usage. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. A lot of which are 5 axis machines. The best servos to utilize 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 a powerful 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? Lots of grumble that the little chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On choice is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you opt for bigger bearings.