Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Lady Lake, FL 32159
Numerous have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Lady Lake, FL. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, appeals to lots of people. There’s just on place to get the at a reasonable rate and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Opting for a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Naturally, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a benefit. The schedule of tooling for each of these models is exceptional. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a range of designs from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very little. Sherline also uses WW collet sets for very small work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers use 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 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 uses the most flexibility and lots of tool choices. You can find lots of 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 added ballscrew versions for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you want a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Lady Lake.
Taig likewise uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In truth, you can find a lot of videos and articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items use a lot more rigid ways and usually more “strong” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like a completely various mill or lathe. Taig also uses a great CNC ready mill and lathe. You can also go with their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the very same problems as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they offer. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now provide a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both manufactures is the lack of severe upgrades.
Sherline offers many parts and attachments, however very little to make it a better machine. To begin with, they headstock usages poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This implies the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with extremely little mass implies the lathe or mill the finish quality will not be as good and based on vibration problems. For instance, they provide many lathe devices, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole needs to be small due to the fact that the bearings are little. There is a similar problem with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this restricts its use. Of course those in Lady Lake, Florida 32159 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Lady Lake
There are other machine choices too. You can likewise purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other providers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t real great. Numerous wind up either extremely disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded 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 a number of the hardware alternatives in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it provides consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for several years. Nevertheless, they were cumbersome at finest and really just focused on amature usage. Centroid is a well recognized commercial manufacture of mills. A lot 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. Integrate that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have an effective machine. We will also produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill utilizing the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of grumble that the small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On alternative is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open up more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you choose bigger bearings.
