Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Hazleton, PA 18201
Numerous are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Hazleton, PA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract lots of individuals. There’s just on location to get the at a sensible cost and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Going with a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Obviously, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a reward. The schedule of tooling for each of these designs is outstanding. For 5C collet sets, you can get very good quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a range of designs from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very small. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for very small work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Many prefer ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle pass through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, many really don’t 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 many tool options. You can discover lots of evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise been available in CNC, manual and CNC all set variations. Just recently, they have included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the internet if you want a review or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Hazleton.
Taig likewise provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In reality, you can find a lot of videos and short articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products offer a lot more stiff methods and generally more “strong” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a totally various mill or lathe. Taig also uses a nice CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can likewise choose their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the same issues as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they offer. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The good thing is that they now provide a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both makes is the absence of severe upgrades.
Sherline provides lots of parts and accessories, but very little to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This means the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with extremely little mass implies the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as great and based on vibration problems. For example, they provide numerous 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 small. There is a similar problem with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this limits its usage. Of course those in Hazleton, Pennsylvania 18201 may have different needs.
There are other machine options too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other providers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t real great. Lots of wind up either very dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you desire to choose a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far better than Mach3 or many of the hardware alternatives in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for many years. Nevertheless, they were cumbersome at best and truly only targeted at amature use. Centroid is a well recognized commercial manufacture of mills. A number 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. Combine 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? Many grumble that the small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On choice is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you go with bigger bearings.