Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Athol, KY 41307
Lots of are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Athol, KY. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest numerous people. There’s only on location to get the at an affordable price and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Opting for a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Naturally, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a bonus offer. The accessibility of tooling for each of these designs is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a range of designs from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very small. Sherline likewise uses WW collet sets for really small work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. A lot of prefer ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle travel 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 hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides one of the most versatility and numerous tool options. You can find many evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise can be found in CNC, handbook and CNC prepared variations. Just recently, they have included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the internet if you want a review or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Athol.
Taig also provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In truth, you can find a lot of videos and short articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products provide much more stiff methods and usually more “strong” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like an absolutely different mill or lathe. Taig also offers a great CNC all set mill and lathe. You can also select their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the same issues as the Sherline. They are far too small. 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 choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both makes is the absence of severe upgrades.
Sherline offers lots of parts and accessories, however very little to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This indicates the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with extremely little mass indicates the lathe or mill the finish quality will not be as great and subject to vibration issues. For instance, they provide lots of lathe accessories, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole has to be small because the bearings are small. There is a comparable issue with the mill. You can only utilize ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Athol, Kentucky 41307 may have different needs.
There are other machine choices too. You can likewise buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other providers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t genuine excellent. Many end up either extremely dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Outstanding upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you want to choose a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or many of the hardware choices in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for several years. However, they were cumbersome at finest and really only aimed at amature use. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. Much of which are 5 axis machines. The very best servos to use 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 reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of complain 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 more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you go with larger bearings.