Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Mammoth Cave, KY 42259
Many are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Mammoth Cave, KY. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract lots of people. There’s just on location to get the at a reasonable cost and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Going with a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Naturally, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a reward. The availability 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 variety of designs from the factory. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very little. Sherline also offers 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 bigger spindle pass through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, many truly do not 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 reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise can be found in CNC, manual and CNC ready variations. Just recently, they have added ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the web if you want a review or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Mammoth Cave.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competitors. In reality, you can find a lot of videos and articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products use far more stiff methods and usually more “strong” in general. The Taig motors are pretty weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like a completely different mill or lathe. Taig also offers 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 exact same issues as the Sherline. They are far too little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they use. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now use a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both makes is the absence of serious upgrades.
Sherline provides lots of parts and accessories, however very little to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock usages poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This suggests the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with very little mass indicates the lathe or mill the finish quality will not be as great and subject to vibration issues. For example, they use numerous lathe devices, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole has to be little because the bearings are small. There is a similar concern with the mill. You can only utilize ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Mammoth Cave, Kentucky 42259 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Mammoth Cave
There are other machine alternatives too. You can likewise buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other suppliers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t real good. Many wind up either very dissatisfied 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 prefer to opt for a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or much 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 standard for many years. However, they were clunky at finest and actually only targeted at amature use. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. Much of which are 5 axis makers. 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 using the Acorn hardware.
What about a much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Many complain that the small chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On alternative is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open up more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you choose bigger bearings.