Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Downieville, CA 95936
Lots of have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Downieville, CA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract many individuals. There’s only on place to get the at an affordable price and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect 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 reward. The availability of tooling for each of these designs is outstanding. For 5C collet sets, you can get great quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a variety of models from the factory. Normally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely little. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for really tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. The majority of choose ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle travel through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, many actually do not care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It uses the most flexibility and lots of tool choices. You can discover lots of reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also been available in CNC, handbook and CNC ready versions. Recently, they have included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far much 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 Downieville.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competitors. In truth, you can discover a lot of videos and short articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products use a lot more stiff ways and usually more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like an absolutely different mill or lathe. Taig also provides a nice CNC ready mill and lathe. You can likewise choose their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the very 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 nice thing is that they now offer a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both makes is the lack of serious upgrades.
Sherline provides numerous parts and accessories, but not much to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This implies the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with very little mass means the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as excellent and based on vibration issues. For example, they offer 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 little due to the fact that the bearings are small. There is a similar problem with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Downieville, California 95936 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Downieville
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other providers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t genuine excellent. Many 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 go with a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far better than Mach3 or many of the hardware alternatives in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it provides consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for several years. However, they were cumbersome at best and truly only targeted at amature use. Centroid is a well established business manufacture of mills. A lot of which are 5 axis machines. The very 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 an effective machine. We will likewise produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of complain 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 more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you opt for larger bearings.