Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Macon, IL 62544
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Macon, IL. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest many people. There’s only on location to get the at a sensible cost and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal 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 benefit. The availability of tooling for each of these designs is exceptional. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a variety of designs from the factory. Typically ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very small. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for really tiny work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. A lot of prefer ER25, ER32 or perhaps 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, a lot of truly do not care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers one of the most flexibility and many tool choices. You can find many reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise come in CNC, handbook and CNC prepared variations. Just recently, they have actually included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the web if you desire a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Macon.
Taig also uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In fact, you can discover a great deal of videos and articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items offer much more rigid ways and normally more “sturdy” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like an absolutely various mill or lathe. Taig likewise provides a nice CNC ready mill and lathe. You can likewise choose their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. The Taig spindles have the same problems as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they offer. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now provide a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both makes is the absence of major upgrades.
Sherline uses many parts and accessories, but very little to make it a better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This indicates the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with extremely little mass means the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as excellent and based on vibration issues. For instance, they provide numerous lathe devices, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the pass through hole needs to be small because the bearings are small. There is a comparable issue with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this limits its usage. Of course those in Macon, Illinois 62544 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Macon
There are other machine options too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other suppliers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t genuine excellent. Many end up either extremely dissatisfied or doing a great deal 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 desire to choose a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far 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 consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for many years. However, they were cumbersome at best and really only aimed at amature use. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. A lot of which are 5 axis devices. The very best servos to utilize for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brands. 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 much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Many grumble that the small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On choice is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open up more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you choose larger bearings.