Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Newtown, VA 23126
Numerous have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Newtown, VA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, appeals to lots of individuals. There’s just on location to get the at a reasonable rate and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Choosing a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Naturally, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a perk. The schedule of tooling for each of these designs is outstanding. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a variety of designs from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really little. Sherline likewise provides WW collet sets for really small work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Most choose ER25, ER32 or even 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, most actually don’t care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides one of the most flexibility and numerous tool options. You can find numerous reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also come in CNC, manual and CNC ready variations. Just recently, they have included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Search the internet if you want an evaluation or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Newtown.
Taig likewise provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In truth, you can discover a great deal of videos and posts referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products provide a lot more stiff ways and normally more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a completely different mill or lathe. Taig likewise offers a nice CNC all set mill and lathe. You can also choose their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the same issues as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they provide. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now provide a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both manufactures is the lack of severe upgrades.
Sherline offers numerous parts and attachments, however not much to make it a much better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This implies the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with very little mass indicates the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as good and subject to vibration problems. For example, they use numerous lathe devices, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole has to be small because the bearings are small. There is a comparable problem with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Newtown, Virginia 23126 may have different needs.
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other suppliers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t real good. Lots of end up either really dissatisfied or doing a great deal of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Outstanding upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you want to go with a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or many of the hardware options in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for many years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at best and truly just aimed at amature use. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. A number of which are 5 axis devices. The 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 likewise produce evaluations of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of complain that the little chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On option is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you go with bigger bearings.