Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Humble, TX 77347
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Humble, TX. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, appeals to lots of people. There’s only on location to get the at a sensible cost which’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Opting for 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 schedule of tooling for each of these models is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a range of models from the factory. Normally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely small. Sherline also offers WW collet sets for very tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Most prefer ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle go 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 uses the most flexibility and numerous tool choices. You can find lots of evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also can be found in CNC, handbook and CNC prepared variations. Recently, they have added ballscrew variations for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the internet if you want a review or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Humble.
Taig also uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In fact, you can discover a great deal of videos and short articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products provide a lot more stiff methods and typically more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a totally different mill or lathe. Taig likewise uses a nice CNC ready mill and lathe. You can likewise select their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. 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 provide. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The good thing is that they now provide a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both manufactures is the lack of major upgrades.
Sherline offers lots of parts and attachments, but not much to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This suggests the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with very little mass means the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as good and based on vibration problems. For example, they use lots of lathe accessories, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole has to be little since the bearings are small. There is a similar issue with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this limits its usage. Of course those in Humble, Texas 77347 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Humble
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other providers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t real excellent. Many wind up either extremely dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Outstanding upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you want to go with a CNC machine, your best option is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far better than Mach3 or many of the hardware choices in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it uses constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for several years. Nevertheless, they were cumbersome at best and actually only targeted at amature usage. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. A number of which are 5 axis machines. The very best servos to utilize 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 also produce evaluations of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill utilizing the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Many grumble that the little chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On choice is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you choose larger bearings.