Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Lutherville Timonium, MD 21094
Numerous have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Lutherville Timonium, MD. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest lots of individuals. There’s only on location to get the at a reasonable cost and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal 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 bonus offer. The schedule of tooling for each of these models is exceptional. For 5C collet sets, you can get very good quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a variety of designs from the factory. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very small. Sherline also offers WW collet sets for really tiny work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Many prefer ER25, ER32 or perhaps ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle travel through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, many truly don’t care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides 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 likewise can be found in CNC, manual and CNC all set variations. Recently, they have added ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you desire an evaluation or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Lutherville Timonium.
Taig also uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In truth, you can find a lot of videos and posts referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products provide much more rigid methods and usually more “heavy duty” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like a totally various mill or lathe. Taig likewise provides a great CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can likewise go with 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 little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they provide. 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 drawback with both manufactures is the lack of serious upgrades.
Sherline provides numerous parts and attachments, however not much to make it a much better machine. To begin with, they headstock usages poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This suggests 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 good and based on 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 has to be small due to the fact that the bearings are small. There is a similar concern with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Lutherville Timonium, Maryland 21094 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Lutherville Timonium
There are other machine choices too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other providers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t genuine great. Lots of end up either really disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Outstanding upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you desire to go with a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or much of the hardware options 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 requirement for many years. However, they were cumbersome at best and actually just aimed at amature use. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. Many 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 likewise 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? Lots of grumble that the small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On choice is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you choose larger bearings.