Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Hondo, NM 88336
Numerous are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Hondo, NM. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, appeals to numerous people. There’s just on location to get the at an affordable cost which’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Going with 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 exceptional. For 5C collet sets, you can get great quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts can be found in a range of models from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very little. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for very small work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. The majority of choose ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle pass through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, a lot of actually do not care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It uses one of the most versatility and many tool choices. You can find many evaluations 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 prepared versions. Just recently, they have included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the web if you want an evaluation or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Hondo.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competitors. In truth, you can discover a great deal of videos and short articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items use far more stiff ways 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 seem like a totally different mill or lathe. Taig also uses a great CNC ready mill and lathe. You can also opt for 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 model they provide. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The nice 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 makes is the lack of serious upgrades.
Sherline offers 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 means the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with extremely little mass suggests the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as good and subject to vibration problems. For instance, they provide many lathe accessories, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the pass through hole needs to be little since the bearings are little. There is a similar issue with the mill. You can just utilize ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Hondo, New Mexico 88336 may have different needs.
There are other machine options too. You can likewise purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other providers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t genuine great. Many wind up either extremely dissatisfied or doing a great deal of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you want to choose a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or a lot of the hardware choices 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 clunky at finest and truly only aimed at amature usage. Centroid is a well established business manufacture of mills. A lot of which are 5 axis machines. The very 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 an effective 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 little chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On option is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you choose bigger bearings.