Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Grand Rapids, MI 49505
Numerous are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Grand Rapids, MI. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract many people. There’s just on location to get the at an affordable rate which’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Choosing a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Naturally, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a bonus. The availability of tooling for each of these designs is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a variety of models from the factory. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really small. Sherline likewise offers WW collet sets for very tiny work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Many choose ER25, ER32 or perhaps ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle travel through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the 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 provides the most versatility and lots of tool choices. You can discover many evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also come in CNC, handbook and CNC prepared versions. Just recently, they have actually added ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the internet if you want an evaluation or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Grand Rapids.
Taig likewise provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In fact, you can discover a lot of videos and posts describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items use much more stiff methods and typically more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like a totally various mill or lathe. Taig likewise uses a nice CNC all set mill and lathe. You can also go with their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the exact same issues as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they offer. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now use a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both manufactures is the lack of major upgrades.
Sherline uses many parts and attachments, but very little to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock usages poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This implies the spindle itself requires to be little. A spindle with really little mass implies the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as good and based on vibration issues. For example, they provide many 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 small. There is a comparable issue with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this restricts its use. Of course those in Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Grand Rapids
There are other machine options too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other providers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t real great. Many end up either extremely disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded 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 much of the hardware options in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for many years. However, they were cumbersome at finest and really only aimed at amature use. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. A number of which are 5 axis makers. The very 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 a powerful machine. We will also produce evaluations of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a much 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 buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open up more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you go with bigger bearings.