Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Altonah, UT 84002
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Altonah, UT. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract many individuals. There’s just on place to get the at a reasonable cost which’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Going with a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Obviously, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a benefit. The accessibility of tooling for each of these models is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts can be found in a variety of models from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely little. Sherline likewise provides WW collet sets for extremely tiny work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Most prefer ER25, ER32 or perhaps ER40 collet sizes with a larger 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 uses the most flexibility and lots of tool options. You can discover numerous evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also come in CNC, handbook and CNC all set versions. Recently, they have included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the internet if you desire an evaluation or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Altonah.
Taig also uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In fact, you can find a lot of videos and articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products use a lot more rigid ways and normally more “strong” in general. The Taig motors are pretty weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like an absolutely different mill or lathe. Taig also uses a good CNC prepared 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 offer. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now provide a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both manufactures is the lack of major upgrades.
Sherline provides lots of parts and accessories, but not much to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This indicates the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with extremely little mass means the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as excellent and based on vibration problems. For example, they provide many lathe accessories, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the pass through hole needs to be little because the bearings are small. There is a similar concern with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Altonah, Utah 84002 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Altonah
There are other machine options too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other providers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t real great. Many wind up either really dissatisfied or doing a great deal of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded 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 and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or many of the hardware options in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it uses consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for several years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at best and actually just targeted at amature usage. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. A lot of which are 5 axis devices. The very best servos to utilize 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 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? Numerous grumble that the small chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On alternative is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you opt for bigger bearings.