Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Boise, ID 83717
Numerous are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Boise, ID. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract numerous people. There’s only on place to get the at an affordable price which’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Going with a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Obviously, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a benefit. The schedule of tooling for each of these designs is exceptional. For 5C collet sets, you can get very good quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a range of designs from the factory. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very small. Sherline also uses WW collet sets for very tiny work. Generally 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 best. For Sherline mills, most really do not 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 flexibility and numerous tool options. You can find lots of evaluations 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 variations. Recently, they have actually included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Search the internet if you want an evaluation or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Boise.
Taig likewise offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In fact, you can find a great deal of videos and articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items provide a lot more stiff ways and typically more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like an absolutely various mill or lathe. Taig likewise offers a nice CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can likewise 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 offer. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now offer a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both manufactures is the absence of serious upgrades.
Sherline offers numerous parts and attachments, but very little to make it a better machine. To begin with, they headstock usages poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This indicates the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with really little mass means the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as great and subject to vibration problems. For example, they provide many lathe devices, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole needs to be little since the bearings are little. There is a comparable concern with the mill. You can just utilize ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Boise, Idaho 83717 may have different needs.
There are other machine choices too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other suppliers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t real good. Many wind up either extremely disappointed or doing a great deal of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you want to go with a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or much of the hardware choices 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 several years. However, they were clunky at best and really just aimed at amature usage. Centroid is a well recognized business manufacture of mills. Much 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 likewise produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill utilizing the Acorn hardware.
What about a 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 built in. This can open up more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you go with larger bearings.