Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Elberon, VA 23846
Lots of are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Elberon, VA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract many people. There’s only on place to get the at a reasonable cost and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Opting for a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Obviously, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a perk. The availability of tooling for each of these designs is exceptional. For 5C collet sets, you can get great quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a range of models from the factory. Typically ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely little. Sherline also offers WW collet sets for really tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Many choose ER25, ER32 or perhaps ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle go through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, a lot of truly do not care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers one of the most flexibility 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 come in CNC, manual and CNC prepared versions. Just recently, they have included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you want an evaluation or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Elberon.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In fact, you can find a lot of videos and articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products offer far more rigid methods and typically more “strong” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like a completely various mill or lathe. Taig likewise offers a nice CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can also go with 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 use. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The good thing is that they now provide a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both produces is the lack of serious upgrades.
Sherline uses lots of parts and accessories, but very little to make it a better machine. To begin with, they headstock usages poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This means the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with very little mass implies the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as great and based on vibration issues. For instance, they offer many lathe accessories, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole needs to be small since the bearings are small. There is a similar concern with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Elberon, Virginia 23846 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Elberon
There are other machine alternatives too. You can likewise purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other suppliers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t real good. Many wind up either extremely dissatisfied or doing a great deal of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Outstanding upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you desire to go with a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far better than Mach3 or much of the hardware choices 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 requirement for many years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at best and truly just focused on amature use. Centroid is a well established business manufacture of mills. Much of which are 5 axis makers. 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 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? Numerous grumble that the little chucks won’t 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 choose larger bearings.