Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Bayville, ME 04536
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Bayville, ME. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest lots of people. There’s just on place to get the at a sensible price and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Opting for a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Obviously, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a perk. The schedule of tooling for each of these models is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get very good quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a variety of designs from the factory. Normally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really little. Sherline also uses WW collet sets for very small work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Most prefer ER25, ER32 or perhaps ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle pass through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, a lot of 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 numerous tool choices. You can discover numerous evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise come in CNC, handbook and CNC prepared versions. Just recently, they have added ballscrew versions 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 Bayville.
Taig likewise uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In reality, you can find a lot of videos and articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products use far more stiff methods and usually 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 look like a totally different mill or lathe. Taig likewise uses a good CNC ready mill and lathe. You can also opt for their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the very 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 choice 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 numerous parts and accessories, but very little to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This means the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with very little mass means the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as excellent and based on vibration problems. For example, they use lots of lathe devices, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole needs to be little due to the fact that the bearings are small. There is a similar issue with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this restricts its use. Of course those in Bayville, Maine 04536 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Bayville
There are other machine options too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other providers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t genuine great. Numerous end up either really dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you prefer to go with a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far better than Mach3 or a lot of the hardware alternatives in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it provides continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for several years. However, they were cumbersome at best and truly only targeted at amature use. 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 brand names. Combine that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have an effective 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? Lots of complain that the small chucks won’t 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 up more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you choose larger bearings.