Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Proctorville, NC 28375
Numerous have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Proctorville, NC. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest many people. There’s only on location to get the at a sensible cost and that’s GlockCNC. Updating 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 likewise a bonus. The accessibility of tooling for each of these models is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get very good quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a range of models from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely small. Sherline likewise uses WW collet sets for really small work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. The majority of choose ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle go through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, a lot of really don’t care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers one of the most flexibility and numerous tool choices. You can find many evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also been available in CNC, handbook and CNC all set variations. Recently, they have actually added ballscrew variations for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you want an evaluation or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Proctorville.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In fact, you can find a lot of videos and posts describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items use a lot more rigid ways and normally more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like an absolutely different mill or lathe. Taig also uses a nice CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can also go with their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. The Taig spindles have the very same issues as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they provide. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now use a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both makes is the absence of major upgrades.
Sherline provides numerous parts and attachments, however very little to make it a much better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This suggests the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with really little mass means the lathe or mill the finish quality will not be as good and subject to vibration problems. For instance, they provide numerous lathe devices, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole needs to be little due to the fact that the bearings are small. There is a comparable problem with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Proctorville, North Carolina 28375 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Proctorville
There are other machine options too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other suppliers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t genuine great. 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, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you desire to choose a CNC machine, your best option is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or much of the hardware options in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers continuous 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 usage. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. Many of which are 5 axis devices. The best servos to use 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 reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Many grumble that the small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On choice is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you go with bigger bearings.