Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Shawnee Mission, KS 66206
Lots of are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Shawnee Mission, KS. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, appeals to numerous individuals. There’s only on location to get the at a sensible price and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Choosing a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Obviously, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a bonus. The accessibility of tooling for each of these designs is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get very good quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts can be found in a range of designs from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very small. Sherline also uses WW collet sets for very tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Most choose ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle go 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 uses one of the most flexibility and lots of tool choices. You can discover many evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also come in CNC, handbook and CNC ready versions. Just recently, they have included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the web if you desire a review or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Shawnee Mission.
Taig likewise uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In reality, you can find a lot of videos and short articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items provide a lot more rigid methods and normally more “strong” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, similar to 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 ready mill and lathe. You can also select their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. The Taig spindles have the same problems as the Sherline. They are far too little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they use. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now provide a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both produces is the lack of serious upgrades.
Sherline uses numerous parts and attachments, however not much to make it a much better machine. To begin with, they headstock usages bad quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This implies the spindle itself requires to be little. A spindle with really little mass indicates the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as good and based on vibration issues. For example, they offer lots of lathe devices, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the pass through hole has to be little since the bearings are little. There is a similar problem with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Shawnee Mission, Kansas 66206 may have different needs.
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other suppliers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t real excellent. Lots of end up either extremely disappointed or doing a great deal 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 prefer to go with a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far better than Mach3 or many of the hardware alternatives in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it uses consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for several years. However, they were cumbersome at best and really only targeted at amature usage. Centroid is a well established business manufacture of mills. A number 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? Many grumble that the small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On option is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open up more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you opt for larger bearings.