Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Prattville, AL 36066
Many are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Prattville, AL. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, appeals to many people. There’s only on location to get the at a reasonable cost which’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Choosing a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Obviously, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a bonus. The availability of tooling for each of these designs 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 very tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. A lot of prefer ER25, ER32 or perhaps ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle pass through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, most really do not care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides the most flexibility and lots of tool options. You can discover lots of evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise come in CNC, manual and CNC ready variations. Recently, they have included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the internet if you desire a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Prattville.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In fact, you can find a great deal of videos and posts describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products offer far more stiff ways and typically more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like an absolutely different mill or lathe. Taig likewise uses a great CNC ready mill and lathe. You can likewise choose their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the exact same issues as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they use. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now provide a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both manufactures is the lack of severe upgrades.
Sherline provides many parts and attachments, however not much to make it a better machine. To begin with, they headstock usages poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This implies the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with very little mass suggests the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as great and subject to vibration problems. For instance, they provide lots of lathe accessories, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the pass through hole needs to be small due to the fact that the bearings are little. There is a comparable problem with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Prattville, Alabama 36066 may have different needs.
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other providers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t genuine good. Lots of wind up either very dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Outstanding upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you want to opt for a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far better than Mach3 or much of the hardware choices in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it provides consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for several years. However, they were cumbersome at best and really only aimed at amature use. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. Many of which are 5 axis machines. 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 utilizing the Acorn hardware.
What about a much 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 built in. This can open up more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you opt for larger bearings.