Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Stamford, CT 06905
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Stamford, CT. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract lots of people. There’s only on location to get the at a reasonable cost which’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Going with a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Obviously, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a reward. The accessibility of tooling for each of these models is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts can be found in a variety of designs from the factory. Typically ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really small. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for really tiny work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. The majority of 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 best. For Sherline mills, many really do not care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides the most flexibility and lots of tool choices. You can find many reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also can be found in CNC, handbook and CNC prepared variations. Just recently, they have actually added ballscrew variations for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the web if you desire an evaluation or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Stamford.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In reality, you can discover a lot of videos and short articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products use far more rigid methods and normally more “strong” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like a completely different mill or lathe. Taig also uses a good CNC ready mill and lathe. You can likewise select their digital CNC system which utilizes 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 use. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now provide a ballscrew choice 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 lots of parts and attachments, however very little to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock usages poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This means the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with really little mass implies the lathe or mill the finish quality will not be as excellent and subject to vibration issues. For instance, they provide lots of lathe accessories, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole needs to be little since the bearings are small. There is a comparable concern with the mill. You can just utilize ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Stamford, Connecticut 06905 may have different needs.
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other suppliers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t real good. Lots of end up either very disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, updated 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 number of the hardware options in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for several years. However, they were clunky at finest and really only aimed at amature usage. Centroid is a well recognized commercial manufacture of mills. A lot of which are 5 axis devices. The best servos to utilize for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brand names. Combine 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 utilizing the Acorn hardware.
What about a much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Many grumble that the little chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On alternative is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open up more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you go with bigger bearings.
