Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for West Point, IA 52656
Lots of have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the West Point, IA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest many people. There’s just on place to get the at a sensible rate which’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Choosing a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Of course, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a benefit. 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 come in a variety of designs from the factory. Typically ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really small. Sherline likewise provides WW collet sets for very 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, many actually 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 lots of tool choices. You can discover many reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also been available in CNC, handbook and CNC ready versions. Recently, they have included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Search the internet if you desire a review or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near West Point.
Taig likewise uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In fact, you can discover a great deal of videos and short articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items provide a lot more stiff ways and normally more “strong” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like a totally different mill or lathe. Taig also provides a good CNC ready 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 issues 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 provide a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both produces is the absence of major upgrades.
Sherline offers numerous parts and accessories, however not much to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock usages poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This means the spindle itself requires to be little. A spindle with extremely little mass means the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as good 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 has to be little because the bearings are small. There is a similar issue with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in West Point, Iowa 52656 may have different needs.
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other suppliers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t genuine good. Numerous end up either extremely dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Outstanding upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you prefer to go with a CNC machine, your best option is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or much of the hardware choices in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it provides constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for many years. However, they were clunky at best and truly just targeted at amature use. Centroid is a well recognized commercial manufacture of mills. A number of which are 5 axis machines. 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 an effective machine. We will also produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Numerous complain that the small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On alternative is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open up more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you go with bigger bearings.