Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Advent, WV 25231
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Advent, WV. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract numerous people. There’s only on place to get the at an affordable rate and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Choosing a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Of course, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a bonus. 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 been available in a variety of models from the factory. Typically ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really little. Sherline also uses WW collet sets for extremely tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Most prefer ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle go through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, many really don’t care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides the most versatility and numerous tool options. You can discover many reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also can be found in CNC, manual and CNC prepared versions. Just recently, they have included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the internet if you desire an evaluation or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Advent.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In reality, you can find a lot of videos and short articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items use far more rigid methods and generally more “heavy duty” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like a totally different mill or lathe. Taig also uses a nice CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can also choose their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. The Taig spindles have the same issues as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they use. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now offer a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both manufactures is the absence of severe upgrades.
Sherline offers numerous parts and attachments, but very little to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This means the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with very little mass implies the lathe or mill the finish quality will not be as good and based on vibration issues. For instance, they provide many lathe accessories, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole has to be small because the bearings are little. There is a similar issue with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Advent, West Virginia 25231 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Advent
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. Lots of end up either very dissatisfied 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 desire to opt for a CNC machine, your best option is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far better than Mach3 or a number of the hardware choices in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it uses consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for many years. Nevertheless, they were cumbersome at finest and really just focused on amature usage. Centroid is a well recognized commercial manufacture of mills. Much 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 brands. Integrate that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have a powerful machine. We will also produce evaluations of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill utilizing the Acorn hardware.
What about a much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of grumble that the little chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On choice is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open up more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you choose larger bearings.