Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Erie, PA 16530
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Erie, PA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract lots of people. There’s only on location to get the at a sensible cost and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Opting for a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Naturally, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a benefit. The accessibility of tooling for each of these models is outstanding. For 5C collet sets, you can get very good quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a range of models from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really small. Sherline also offers WW collet sets for extremely small work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Most prefer ER25, ER32 and 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, most truly don’t 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 options. You can discover many reviews 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 variations. Recently, they have actually added ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Search the internet if you want a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Erie.
Taig likewise provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In fact, you can find a great deal of videos and articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items offer much more rigid ways and generally more “heavy duty” in general. The Taig motors are pretty weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a completely different mill or lathe. Taig also offers a great CNC prepared 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 problems as the Sherline. They are far too little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they offer. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now provide a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both makes is the lack of major upgrades.
Sherline provides numerous parts and attachments, but very little to make it a better machine. To begin with, they headstock usages bad quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This suggests the spindle itself requires to be little. A spindle with extremely little mass indicates the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as good and subject to vibration issues. For instance, they offer numerous 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 similar issue with the mill. You can just utilize ER16 collets and this limits its usage. Of course those in Erie, Pennsylvania 16530 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Erie
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other suppliers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t genuine good. Many end up either very dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Outstanding upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you want to go with a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far better than Mach3 or a number of the hardware choices in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it uses continuous 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 usage. Centroid is a well recognized business manufacture of mills. A lot of which are 5 axis devices. The very best servos to use for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brands. Combine that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have an effective machine. We will likewise produce evaluations of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of grumble that the small chucks will not 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 options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you go with bigger bearings.