Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Greig, NY 13345
Numerous have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Greig, NY. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, appeals to many individuals. There’s only on place to get the at an affordable price and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Opting for a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Of course, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a reward. The accessibility of tooling for each of these designs is exceptional. For 5C collet sets, you can get great quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a variety of designs from the factory. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very small. Sherline likewise uses WW collet sets for very small work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Most prefer ER25, ER32 or 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, most really do not care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers the most versatility and numerous tool options. 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 likewise come in CNC, handbook and CNC all set versions. Just recently, they have added ballscrew versions for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Search the internet if you want a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Greig.
Taig likewise uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In reality, you can discover a lot of videos and short articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products offer far more rigid methods and normally more “heavy duty” 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 uses a great CNC ready mill and lathe. You can also go with their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the exact same problems as the Sherline. They are far too little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they offer. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The good thing is that they now provide a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both manufactures is the lack of major upgrades.
Sherline provides lots of parts and attachments, but not much to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock usages bad quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This implies the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with very little mass indicates the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as good and based on vibration issues. For example, they use many lathe devices, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole needs to be little due to the fact that the bearings are small. There is a similar concern with the mill. You can only utilize ER16 collets and this limits its usage. Of course those in Greig, New York 13345 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Greig
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other suppliers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t genuine good. Many wind up either really 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 opt for a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far better than Mach3 or much of the hardware options in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it uses continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for several years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at finest and really only aimed at amature usage. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. Much of which are 5 axis devices. 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 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 grumble that the little chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply 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. Particularly if you choose bigger bearings.