Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Gibsland, LA 71028
Many are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Gibsland, LA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest lots of individuals. There’s only on place to get the at an affordable price and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Choosing a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Of course, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a bonus. The availability of tooling for each of these models is excellent. 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. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really small. Sherline likewise uses WW collet sets for very tiny work. Generally 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 very best. For Sherline mills, most actually 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 flexibility and lots of tool choices. You can find numerous evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also can be found in CNC, manual and CNC prepared variations. Just recently, they have actually included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the web if you want a review or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Gibsland.
Taig likewise offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In fact, you can find a lot of videos and posts referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items use a lot more stiff methods and typically more “strong” in general. The Taig motors are pretty weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like a completely various mill or lathe. Taig likewise offers a good CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can likewise go with 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 an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now offer a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both makes is the lack of major upgrades.
Sherline offers lots of parts and accessories, but not much to make it a better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This implies the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with very little mass suggests the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as great and based on vibration issues. For example, they use lots of lathe accessories, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the pass through hole has to be little since the bearings are little. There is a comparable concern with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Gibsland, Louisiana 71028 may have different needs.
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other suppliers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t genuine great. Numerous wind up either extremely disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Outstanding upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you prefer to go with 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 options 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 finest and truly just focused on 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 brand names. Integrate that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have a powerful 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 small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On alternative is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open up more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you opt for bigger bearings.