Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Templeton, MA 01468
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Templeton, MA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, appeals to many people. There’s only on place to get the at an affordable rate and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal 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 also a benefit. The availability of tooling for each of these designs is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get great quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts can be found in a range of designs from the factory. Typically ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely little. Sherline also offers WW collet sets for really small work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Most choose ER25, ER32 or perhaps ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle go through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, most truly don’t care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers the most flexibility and many tool choices. You can discover many evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise can be found in CNC, manual and CNC prepared variations. Recently, they have included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the internet if you want an evaluation or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Templeton.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In truth, you can find a great deal of videos and short articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items use much more rigid ways and usually more “heavy duty” in general. The Taig motors are pretty weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like a totally various mill or lathe. Taig likewise uses a good CNC all set mill and lathe. You can also select their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the exact same problems as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they provide. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now use a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both manufactures is the lack of serious upgrades.
Sherline offers lots of parts and attachments, but very little to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock usages poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This suggests the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with really little mass suggests the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as great and based on vibration issues. For instance, they use many lathe accessories, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole needs to be small since the bearings are little. There is a comparable problem with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Templeton, Massachusetts 01468 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Templeton
There are other machine choices too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other providers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t real great. Numerous end up either very dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you desire to opt for a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or much of the hardware alternatives in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for many years. Nevertheless, they were cumbersome at finest and really just aimed at amature usage. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. Much of which are 5 axis devices. The best servos to use 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 also produce evaluations of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Many grumble that the little chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On choice 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.