Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Elk, CA 95432
Numerous are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Elk, CA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract many people. There’s just 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 ideal for the lathes. Obviously, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a perk. The availability of tooling for each of these models is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get great quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a variety of models from the factory. Normally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really small. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for very tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Many 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, the majority of really 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 choices. You can find lots of reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also come in CNC, handbook and CNC prepared versions. Just recently, they have added ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you desire a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Elk.
Taig likewise provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competitors. In fact, you can discover a great deal of videos and posts referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products use far more rigid ways and usually more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like a totally various mill or lathe. Taig also offers a great CNC ready 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 problems as the Sherline. They are far too little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they provide. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now offer a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both makes is the absence of major upgrades.
Sherline uses many parts and attachments, but very little to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This means the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with extremely little mass suggests the lathe or mill the finish quality will not be as excellent and subject to vibration issues. For example, they offer many lathe accessories, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole needs to be small because the bearings are small. There is a similar issue with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Elk, California 95432 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Elk
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other suppliers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t real excellent. Many wind up either really dissatisfied 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 desire to go with a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far better than Mach3 or many of the hardware options in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it uses continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for many years. However, they were clunky at finest and really just aimed at amature usage. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. Many of which are 5 axis machines. The best servos to utilize for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brands. 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 much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Many grumble that the little chucks won’t 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 options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you choose bigger bearings.