Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Rochester, MN 55901
Lots of have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Rochester, MN. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest many people. There’s only on place to get the at a reasonable price which’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Going with a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Obviously, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a bonus. The accessibility of tooling for each of these models 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. Normally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very small. Sherline also offers WW collet sets for extremely small work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. A lot of prefer ER25, ER32 or perhaps ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle pass through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, a lot of 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 versatility 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 likewise can be found in CNC, handbook and CNC prepared versions. Just recently, they have included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the web if you want a review or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Rochester.
Taig also provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In reality, you can discover a lot of videos and short articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products provide far more stiff ways and usually more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like an absolutely different mill or lathe. Taig also provides a good CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can likewise go with their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the same problems as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they use. We will do a review 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 disadvantage with both produces is the lack of major upgrades.
Sherline provides lots of parts and accessories, but not much to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock usages poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This implies the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with very little mass implies the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as excellent and based on vibration issues. For example, they offer numerous lathe accessories, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole needs to be small due to the fact that the bearings are little. There is a similar issue with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Rochester, Minnesota 55901 may have different needs.
There are other machine options too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other providers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t genuine great. Lots of wind up either very 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 want to choose a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far 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 continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for several years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at best and really just aimed at amature use. Centroid is a well established business manufacture of mills. Much 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. Integrate that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have a powerful machine. We will likewise produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Numerous complain that the small 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 more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you opt for bigger bearings.