Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Wheatland, ND 58079
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Wheatland, ND. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest many individuals. There’s only on place to get the at a sensible price which’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 also a bonus. The availability of tooling for each of these designs is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts can be found in a range of models from the factory. Typically ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very little. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for very tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Many 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 very best. For Sherline mills, most actually 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 versatility and lots of tool choices. You can find lots of evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also been available in CNC, manual and CNC prepared versions. Recently, they have included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much 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 Wheatland.
Taig also provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In fact, you can find a great deal of videos and articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products use much more rigid ways and usually more “sturdy” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a completely different mill or lathe. Taig likewise provides a nice CNC ready mill and lathe. You can also opt for 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 little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they use. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now use 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 provides lots of parts and accessories, but not much to make it a much better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This indicates the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with very little mass implies the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as excellent and based on vibration problems. For instance, they use many lathe devices, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole needs to be little since the bearings are little. There is a comparable problem with the mill. You can only utilize ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Wheatland, North Dakota 58079 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Wheatland
There are other machine choices too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other suppliers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t real excellent. Many 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 prefer to go with a CNC machine, your best choice 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 rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it uses continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for several years. However, they were clunky at finest and really only focused on amature use. Centroid is a well established business manufacture of mills. A lot 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 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 better jaw chuck for the lathe? Numerous complain that the small chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will simply 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 choose larger bearings.