Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Lucama, NC 27851
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Lucama, NC. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest numerous people. There’s only on place to get the at a reasonable cost which’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Opting for a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Of course, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a perk. The schedule of tooling for each of these designs is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get great quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a variety of models from the factory. Typically ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely small. Sherline also offers WW collet sets for very small work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Most choose ER25, ER32 or perhaps ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle go through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, most truly do not care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides the most versatility and lots of tool options. You can find numerous reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also can be found in CNC, manual and CNC all set variations. Recently, they have included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far 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 Lucama.
Taig also uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In fact, you can find a lot of videos and short articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products offer far more stiff ways and typically more “heavy duty” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like an absolutely various mill or lathe. Taig likewise uses a good CNC all set mill and lathe. You can likewise select their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the exact same issues 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 good thing is that they now use a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both makes is the lack of major upgrades.
Sherline provides numerous parts and attachments, but not much to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock usages bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This suggests the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with very little mass means the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as excellent and subject to vibration issues. For example, they use many lathe accessories, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the pass through hole needs to be little because the bearings are little. There is a similar concern with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Lucama, North Carolina 27851 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Lucama
There are other machine choices too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other suppliers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t real excellent. Many 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 bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far better than Mach3 or much of the hardware options in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it provides constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for several years. However, they were clunky at finest and actually only focused on amature usage. Centroid is a well recognized commercial 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. Integrate that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have a powerful machine. We will also produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Many grumble that the small chucks will not 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. Especially if you go with bigger bearings.