Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Eaton, TN 38331
Many are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Eaton, TN. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest many people. There’s only on place to get the at an affordable price which’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Choosing a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Obviously, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a bonus. 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 can be found in a variety of designs from the factory. Normally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really small. Sherline likewise uses WW collet sets for extremely tiny work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. The majority of prefer ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle pass through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, many really don’t care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides one of the most versatility and many tool options. You can find many evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also can be found in CNC, manual and CNC all set versions. Recently, they have added ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the internet if you want a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Eaton.
Taig likewise offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In fact, you can find a lot of videos and articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products use much more stiff ways and generally more “sturdy” 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 likewise offers a great CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can likewise choose 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 use. We will do a review 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 downside with both manufactures is the absence of serious 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 means the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with really little mass indicates the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as good and subject to vibration issues. For example, they use many lathe devices, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the pass through hole needs to be little because the bearings are little. There is a comparable problem with the mill. You can just utilize ER16 collets and this restricts its use. Of course those in Eaton, Tennessee 38331 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Eaton
There are other machine alternatives too. You can likewise buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other providers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Of course 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 desire. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you want to choose a CNC machine, your best option 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 offers constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for many years. However, they were cumbersome at best and truly just targeted at amature use. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. A number of which are 5 axis devices. The best servos to utilize 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 reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Numerous complain that the small chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On alternative is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you opt for bigger bearings.