Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Saint Johnsville, NY 13452
Many are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Saint Johnsville, NY. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest lots of people. There’s only on location to get the at a sensible cost and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Choosing a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Naturally, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a bonus. The availability 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 variety of designs from the factory. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very small. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for very small work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Many choose ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle pass through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, many actually don’t 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 discover many reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise come in CNC, manual and CNC prepared variations. Just recently, they have added ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you desire a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Saint Johnsville.
Taig likewise provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competitors. In truth, you can find a lot of videos and short articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products use a lot more rigid methods and typically more “strong” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a completely different mill or lathe. Taig likewise uses a nice CNC ready mill and lathe. You can likewise opt for 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 model they provide. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now provide a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both makes is the absence of serious upgrades.
Sherline offers many 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 very little mass suggests the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as great and based on vibration issues. For example, they offer lots of lathe devices, however 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 little. There is a comparable issue with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Saint Johnsville, New York 13452 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Saint Johnsville
There are other machine options too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other suppliers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t genuine excellent. Lots of wind up either very disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you desire to choose 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 uses consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for many years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at best and really only aimed at amature usage. Centroid is a well recognized industrial manufacture of mills. A number of which are 5 axis machines. 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 also produce evaluations of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Numerous grumble that the small chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On alternative is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you go with bigger bearings.