Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for San Gregorio, CA 94074
Lots of are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the San Gregorio, CA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract numerous people. There’s only on place to get the at a sensible cost and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Choosing a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Naturally, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a bonus. The availability of tooling for each of these designs 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. Normally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really small. Sherline also uses WW collet sets for really tiny work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Many prefer ER25, ER32 or perhaps ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle travel through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very 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 uses one of the most versatility and many tool options. You can discover lots of 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 versions. Just recently, they have added ballscrew variations for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the internet if you want a review or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near San Gregorio.
Taig likewise uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In fact, you can find a great deal of videos and posts describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products provide a lot more stiff methods and usually more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like a totally different mill or lathe. Taig also offers a nice CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can likewise choose 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 design they provide. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The good thing is that they now offer a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both makes is the absence of severe upgrades.
Sherline offers many parts and accessories, however very little to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This indicates the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with really little mass implies the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as excellent and based on 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 has to be small because the bearings are little. There is a similar problem with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this restricts its use. Of course those in San Gregorio, California 94074 may have different needs.
There are other machine choices too. You can likewise buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other suppliers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t genuine excellent. Numerous end up either very dissatisfied or doing a great deal of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Outstanding 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 a lot of the hardware alternatives in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for many years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at best and really only focused on amature usage. Centroid is a well recognized industrial manufacture of mills. A lot of which are 5 axis makers. The best servos to utilize for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brands. Combine 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 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 just fall out. On alternative is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open up more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you choose bigger bearings.