Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Reston, VA 22096
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Reston, VA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract many people. There’s only on place to get the at an affordable price and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Opting for a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Of course, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a perk. The accessibility of tooling for each of these models is outstanding. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a variety of models from the factory. Typically ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very small. Sherline also uses WW collet sets for extremely tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. A lot of choose ER25, ER32 or 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, the majority of actually don’t care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers the most versatility and many tool choices. You can find many reviews 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, manual and CNC all set variations. Recently, they have actually included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the web if you desire an evaluation or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Reston.
Taig likewise offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In truth, you can discover a lot of videos and short articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items offer much more stiff ways and generally more “strong” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a totally different mill or lathe. Taig also uses a great CNC ready mill and lathe. You can also choose their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. The Taig spindles have the same issues as the Sherline. They are far too little. 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 use a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both makes is the lack of serious upgrades.
Sherline provides lots of parts and accessories, but not much to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This implies the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with extremely little mass indicates the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as excellent and based on vibration issues. For instance, they offer 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 since the bearings are small. There is a comparable concern with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this limits its usage. Of course those in Reston, Virginia 22096 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Reston
There are other machine options too. You can likewise buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other providers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t real excellent. Numerous wind up either very disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you want to go with a CNC machine, your best option 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 rigid 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. Nevertheless, they were clunky at best and truly only targeted at amature usage. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. A lot of which are 5 axis devices. The very best servos to use for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brands. Combine that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have a powerful machine. We will also 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 little chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On option is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open up more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you opt for bigger bearings.