Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Garland, NC 28441
Lots of have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Garland, NC. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest lots of individuals. There’s only on place to get the at an affordable price which’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Opting for a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Obviously, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a bonus. The accessibility of tooling for each of these models is exceptional. For 5C collet sets, you can get very good quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a variety of designs from the factory. Normally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really little. Sherline also uses WW collet sets for very small work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Most prefer ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle travel through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, most really don’t care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides the most flexibility and numerous tool options. 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, manual and CNC ready variations. Just recently, they have included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Search the internet if you desire a review or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Garland.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In truth, you can discover a great deal of videos and posts describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products offer a lot more stiff methods and usually more “sturdy” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like a totally various mill or lathe. Taig also offers a great CNC prepared 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 small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they use. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The good thing is that they now offer a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both makes is the lack of major upgrades.
Sherline offers numerous parts and attachments, however very little to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This suggests the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with very little mass implies the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as great and subject to vibration problems. For example, they offer lots of lathe accessories, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel 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 restricts its usage. Of course those in Garland, North Carolina 28441 may have different needs.
There are other machine options too. You can likewise buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other providers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t real excellent. Many wind up either extremely 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 want to choose a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software application 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 consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for many years. Nevertheless, they were cumbersome at best and actually only focused on amature use. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. Much of which are 5 axis makers. The best servos to use for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brands. 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 much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Many complain that the little chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On option 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.