Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Anita, PA 15711
Lots of have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Anita, PA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest many people. There’s just on place to get the at an affordable price and that’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 need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a perk. The availability of tooling for each of these designs is outstanding. For 5C collet sets, you can get great quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a range of models from the factory. Normally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely little. Sherline likewise provides WW collet sets for very tiny work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. A lot of prefer 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, many actually don’t care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It uses one of the most versatility and many tool options. 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 come in CNC, manual and CNC all set versions. Recently, they have added ballscrew variations for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the web if you desire an evaluation or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Anita.
Taig also provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In reality, you can find a great deal of videos and posts describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items provide a lot more stiff methods and normally more “strong” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like a totally different mill or lathe. Taig likewise uses a great CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can also go with 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 small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they provide. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now use a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both makes is the lack of major upgrades.
Sherline uses numerous parts and attachments, but very little to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This implies the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with extremely little mass suggests the lathe or mill the finish quality will not be as great and subject to vibration issues. For instance, they use many lathe accessories, however 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 small. There is a similar concern with the mill. You can just utilize ER16 collets and this restricts its use. Of course those in Anita, Pennsylvania 15711 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Anita
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other suppliers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t genuine good. Many end up either very 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 want to choose 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 options in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for many years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at finest and really just targeted at amature usage. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. Many of which are 5 axis machines. The best servos to utilize for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brands. 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 will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On option is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you choose larger bearings.