Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Abbott, TX 76621
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Abbott, TX. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract numerous people. There’s just on place to get the at an affordable rate and that’s GlockCNC. Updating 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 likewise a bonus. The accessibility of tooling for each of these designs is exceptional. For 5C collet sets, you can get very good quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a range of designs from the factory. Normally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely little. Sherline likewise offers WW collet sets for extremely tiny work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. A lot of choose ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle pass through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, the majority of truly do not care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers one of the most versatility and numerous tool options. You can find numerous 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, handbook and CNC ready versions. Recently, they have added ballscrew variations for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you want an evaluation or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Abbott.
Taig also provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In truth, you can discover a great deal of videos and posts describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products provide much more rigid methods and typically more “strong” in general. The Taig motors are quite 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 choose their digital CNC system which uses 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 model they offer. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now use a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both produces is the lack of serious upgrades.
Sherline offers many parts and attachments, however not much to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This means the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with really little mass suggests the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as excellent and subject to vibration problems. For example, they provide numerous lathe devices, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole has to be small since the bearings are small. There is a comparable problem with the mill. You can just utilize ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Abbott, Texas 76621 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Abbott
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other suppliers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t real great. Lots of wind up either really disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Outstanding upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you want to go with a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far better than Mach3 or many of the hardware choices in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it provides consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for many years. Nevertheless, they were cumbersome at best and really just aimed at amature use. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. Much of which are 5 axis devices. The very best servos to use 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 better jaw chuck for the lathe? Numerous complain 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 integrated in. This can open more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you choose bigger bearings.