Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Santa Monica, CA 90404
Lots of have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Santa Monica, CA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract many individuals. There’s just on location to get the at a reasonable cost which’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Going with a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Naturally, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a perk. The accessibility of tooling for each of these models is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get great quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a variety of models from the factory. Normally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely small. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for extremely tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Most prefer ER25, ER32 or even 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, most really do not care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It uses the most flexibility and numerous tool choices. You can discover numerous evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise been available in CNC, manual and CNC all set variations. Just recently, they have actually added ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much 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 Santa Monica.
Taig likewise offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In truth, you can find a lot of videos and short articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products use much more rigid ways and normally more “heavy duty” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like an absolutely various mill or lathe. Taig also offers a good CNC ready mill and lathe. You can likewise select their digital CNC system which uses 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 design they offer. 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 severe upgrades.
Sherline provides numerous parts and accessories, but very little to make it a better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This suggests the spindle itself requires to be little. A spindle with extremely little mass implies the lathe or mill the finish quality will not be as excellent and based on vibration problems. For example, they provide many 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 little. There is a comparable problem with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this limits its usage. Of course those in Santa Monica, California 90404 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Santa Monica
There are other machine options too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other providers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t genuine excellent. Lots of end up either very dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you desire 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 options in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it uses continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for many years. However, they were clunky at best and actually only targeted at amature use. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. A lot of which are 5 axis makers. 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 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 grumble 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 built in. This can open more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you choose bigger bearings.