Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Fremont, CA 94539
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Fremont, CA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest numerous people. There’s just on place to get the at a sensible cost and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Opting for a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Of course, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a benefit. The availability of tooling for each of these models is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts can be found in a range of designs from the factory. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely little. Sherline likewise provides WW collet sets for extremely small work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Most prefer ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle travel through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, the majority of actually do not care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers one of the most versatility and many tool options. You can discover lots of evaluations 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, handbook and CNC ready versions. Recently, they have included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the internet if you desire a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Fremont.
Taig likewise offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In reality, you can find a lot of videos and short articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products offer much more rigid ways and usually more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like a completely different mill or lathe. Taig also uses a nice CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can also choose their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. The Taig spindles have the exact same issues as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they use. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The good thing is that they now provide a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both manufactures is the absence of serious upgrades.
Sherline uses numerous parts and accessories, but very little to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock usages bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This implies the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with really little mass implies the lathe or mill the finish quality will not be as great and subject to vibration problems. For example, they provide many lathe devices, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole has to be small because the bearings are little. There is a similar concern with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this limits its usage. Of course those in Fremont, California 94539 may have different needs.
There are other machine options too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other suppliers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t real excellent. Lots of wind up either really dissatisfied or doing a great deal of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you prefer to choose a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far better than Mach3 or a lot of the hardware alternatives in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for several years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at finest and truly only targeted at amature usage. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. A lot of which are 5 axis machines. The best servos to use 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 an effective machine. We will also produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Many grumble that the little chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On choice is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you opt for bigger bearings.