Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Fort Mcdowell, AZ 85264
Numerous have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Fort Mcdowell, AZ. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, appeals to many individuals. There’s only on place to get the at a sensible cost and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Choosing a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Of course, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a perk. The accessibility of tooling for each of these designs is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get great quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts can be found in a variety of designs from the factory. Typically ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely little. Sherline also uses WW collet sets for extremely small work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Most choose ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle go through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, many really 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 versatility and lots of tool options. You can find numerous 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, manual and CNC prepared versions. Just recently, they have added ballscrew versions for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you want an evaluation or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Fort Mcdowell.
Taig likewise offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In fact, you can discover a great deal of videos and posts describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products offer a lot more rigid ways and generally more “sturdy” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a completely different mill or lathe. Taig likewise offers a great CNC ready mill and lathe. You can also choose their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the same problems as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they provide. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The good thing is that they now offer a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both produces is the absence of major upgrades.
Sherline provides lots of parts and accessories, however not much to make it a much better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This suggests the spindle itself requires to be little. A spindle with very little mass indicates the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as excellent and based on vibration issues. For example, they provide lots of lathe accessories, however 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 problem with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Fort Mcdowell, Arizona 85264 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Fort Mcdowell
There are other machine options too. You can likewise buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other providers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t genuine excellent. Lots of wind up either really disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you prefer to choose a CNC machine, your best option 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 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 clunky at best and truly only targeted at amature use. Centroid is a well recognized commercial manufacture of mills. Many of which are 5 axis devices. The best servos to utilize for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brand names. Integrate 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 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 purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you go with larger bearings.