Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Sturgeon, MO 65284
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Sturgeon, MO. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest many individuals. There’s only on location to get the at a reasonable rate and that’s GlockCNC. Updating 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 also a bonus. The availability of tooling for each of these models is outstanding. 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. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really small. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for very tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Most choose ER25, ER32 and 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, most actually do not care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides one of the most versatility and numerous tool options. You can find many evaluations 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, handbook and CNC ready versions. Just recently, they have included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Search the internet if you desire an evaluation or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Sturgeon.
Taig also uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In fact, you can discover a lot of videos and posts describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products offer much more stiff methods and normally more “heavy duty” in general. 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 all set mill and lathe. You can also opt for their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. 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 use. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now use a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both manufactures is the absence of major upgrades.
Sherline offers lots of parts and accessories, however very little to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock usages bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This implies the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with extremely little mass means the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as excellent and subject to vibration issues. For instance, they offer lots of lathe devices, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole has to be small since the bearings are little. There is a comparable issue with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this limits its usage. Of course those in Sturgeon, Missouri 65284 may have different needs.
There are other machine options too. You can likewise purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other providers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t real excellent. Lots of wind up either extremely disappointed or doing a great deal of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you desire to opt for a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far much 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 offers continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for many years. Nevertheless, they were cumbersome at best and actually just focused on amature use. Centroid is a well recognized industrial manufacture of mills. Much 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. Integrate that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have an effective machine. We will likewise produce evaluations of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a 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. Specifically if you choose larger bearings.