Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Denver, CO 80223
Numerous are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Denver, CO. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, appeals to numerous people. There’s just on location to get the at an affordable rate which’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Going with a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Obviously, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a reward. The accessibility of tooling for each of these models is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get very good quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts can be found in a range of designs from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really little. Sherline likewise offers WW collet sets for very tiny work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Many 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 very 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 versatility and many tool options. You can find many reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise been available in CNC, handbook and CNC all set variations. Just recently, they have included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the internet if you want a review or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Denver.
Taig likewise offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In truth, you can find a great deal of videos and posts referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products provide much more stiff methods and typically more “heavy duty” in general. The Taig motors are pretty weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a totally different mill or lathe. Taig also provides a great CNC all set mill and lathe. You can also choose 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 small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they provide. 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 disadvantage with both makes is the lack of major upgrades.
Sherline offers numerous parts and accessories, but 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 means the lathe or mill the finish quality will not be as good and subject to vibration problems. For instance, they use many lathe devices, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole needs to be little since the bearings are little. There is a similar problem with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Denver, Colorado 80223 may have different needs.
There are other machine alternatives too. You can likewise buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other suppliers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t real great. Lots of end 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 prefer to choose a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or a lot of the hardware options 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 several years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at best and truly just focused on amature usage. Centroid is a well recognized industrial manufacture of mills. A number of which are 5 axis machines. The very best servos to use for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brands. Integrate 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 much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Many grumble that the small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On choice is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you opt for bigger bearings.