Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Houston, TX 77248
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Houston, TX. 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. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Opting for a 5C is ideal 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 designs is outstanding. For 5C collet sets, you can get great quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a variety of models from the factory. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely little. Sherline likewise offers WW collet sets for really tiny work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Most prefer 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 really do not care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers the most versatility and numerous tool options. 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 likewise can be found in CNC, handbook and CNC prepared versions. Recently, they have included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the internet if you want an evaluation or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Houston.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competitors. In reality, you can find a great deal of videos and short articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products provide much more stiff methods and generally more “sturdy” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like a completely different mill or lathe. Taig also offers a great CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can also opt for their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the same problems as the Sherline. They are far too little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they provide. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The good thing is that they now offer a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both produces is the lack of severe upgrades.
Sherline offers many parts and attachments, however very little to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock usages bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This implies the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with extremely little mass means the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as excellent and subject to vibration problems. For example, they offer many lathe devices, but 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 use. Of course those in Houston, Texas 77248 may have different needs.
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other suppliers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t genuine good. Lots of wind up either very disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you prefer to go with a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or a number of the hardware choices 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 standard for several years. However, they were clunky at best and actually only aimed at amature use. Centroid is a well recognized industrial manufacture of mills. Many 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 brand names. Integrate that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have an effective machine. We will likewise produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of complain that the small chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On choice is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open up more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you opt for larger bearings.