Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Mesa, AZ 85212
Numerous have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Mesa, AZ. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest many people. There’s only on location to get the at a sensible price and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Going with a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Of course, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a reward. The accessibility of tooling for each of these designs is exceptional. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts can be found in a variety of models from the factory. Normally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very little. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for extremely small work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Most prefer ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle pass 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 barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It uses the most versatility and numerous tool options. 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 also been available in CNC, manual and CNC all set variations. Just recently, they have added ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the web if you want an evaluation or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Mesa.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In reality, you can find a lot of videos and articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products provide far more stiff ways and generally more “strong” in general. 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 also uses a nice 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 very same problems as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they use. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now provide a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both produces is the lack of major upgrades.
Sherline provides lots of parts and accessories, 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 indicates the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with very little mass suggests the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as great and based on vibration problems. For instance, they offer many lathe devices, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole has to be small since the bearings are little. There is a similar issue with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Mesa, Arizona 85212 may have different needs.
There are other machine alternatives too. You can likewise purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other suppliers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t real good. Numerous wind up either very dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Outstanding upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you desire to opt for a CNC machine, your best option is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or a lot of the hardware alternatives 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 standard for many years. However, they were clunky at best and really only focused on amature use. Centroid is a well established commercial 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 brand names. Integrate that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have an effective machine. We will likewise produce evaluations of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill utilizing the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of complain that the small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On choice is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you go with bigger bearings.