Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Merrifield, VA 22120
Lots of have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Merrifield, VA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest numerous people. There’s only on place to get the at a reasonable rate and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Choosing a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Obviously, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also 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 been available in a range of designs from the factory. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely small. Sherline likewise provides WW collet sets for very tiny work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. A lot of 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 best. For Sherline mills, a lot of actually don’t care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides the most flexibility and lots of tool choices. You can discover numerous evaluations 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, handbook and CNC prepared variations. Recently, they have added ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you desire a review or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Merrifield.
Taig also provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In truth, you can discover a great deal of videos and posts referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products use much more rigid ways and usually more “strong” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like an absolutely various mill or lathe. Taig also uses a great CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can also select their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the exact same problems as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they provide. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now offer a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both manufactures is the lack of serious upgrades.
Sherline offers numerous parts and accessories, however not much to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This indicates the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with really little mass means the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as great and based on vibration issues. For example, they offer lots of lathe accessories, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole has to be little since the bearings are little. There is a similar concern with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this restricts its use. Of course those in Merrifield, Virginia 22120 may have different needs.
There are other machine options too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other providers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t genuine excellent. Lots of end up either extremely dissatisfied or doing a lot 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 want to choose a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far better than Mach3 or a number of the hardware options in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it uses consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for many years. However, they were clunky at finest and truly just focused on amature use. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. Much of which are 5 axis machines. The best servos to use for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brands. Combine that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have a powerful machine. We will also produce evaluations of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill utilizing the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Numerous complain that the small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On alternative is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you choose bigger bearings.