Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Port Jefferson, NY 11777
Many are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Port Jefferson, NY. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract many people. There’s just on place to get the at a sensible price and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Opting for a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Obviously, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a reward. The schedule of tooling for each of these designs is outstanding. For 5C collet sets, you can get very good quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a range of models from the factory. Typically ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very little. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for extremely tiny work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Many prefer ER25, ER32 or perhaps ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle go 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 many tool options. You can find numerous 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 prepared versions. Just recently, they have actually included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you want an evaluation or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Port Jefferson.
Taig likewise uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In reality, you can discover a great deal of videos and short articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items provide a lot more stiff ways and usually more “strong” in general. The Taig motors are pretty weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like a totally different mill or lathe. Taig also provides a great CNC ready 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 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 offer a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both makes is the lack of serious upgrades.
Sherline provides many parts and attachments, however not much to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock usages poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This means the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with extremely little mass means the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as good and based on vibration problems. For instance, they offer lots of lathe accessories, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole has to be little because the bearings are small. There is a comparable problem with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this limits its usage. Of course those in Port Jefferson, New York 11777 may have different needs.
There are other machine choices too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other suppliers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t real great. Many end up either extremely disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you want to opt for a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far better than Mach3 or a lot of the hardware choices in the market. You can do rigid 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. However, they were clunky at best and truly just focused on amature use. Centroid is a well established business manufacture of mills. A lot of which are 5 axis makers. 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 a powerful 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? Many grumble that the little chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On option is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open up more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you choose bigger bearings.