Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Carmel Valley, CA 93924
Numerous have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Carmel Valley, CA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, appeals to numerous people. There’s only on place to get the at a reasonable 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 availability of tooling for each of these models is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a variety of models from the factory. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely little. Sherline likewise offers WW collet sets for really small work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. The majority of prefer ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle pass through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, many truly don’t care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides the most flexibility and numerous tool options. You can find many 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, handbook and CNC all set versions. Recently, they have included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the web if you want a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Carmel Valley.
Taig likewise uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competitors. In reality, you can find a lot of videos and articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items offer far more stiff ways and usually more “strong” in general. The Taig motors are pretty 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 offers a nice CNC ready mill and lathe. You can also select 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 provide. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now offer a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both manufactures is the absence of severe upgrades.
Sherline uses numerous parts and accessories, however 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 means 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 subject to vibration issues. For instance, they provide numerous lathe devices, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole has to be small since the bearings are little. There is a comparable problem with the mill. You can only utilize ER16 collets and this limits its usage. Of course those in Carmel Valley, California 93924 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Carmel Valley
There are other machine choices too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other providers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t genuine excellent. Lots of end up either really dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded 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 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 provides consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for many years. Nevertheless, they were cumbersome at best and truly only targeted at amature use. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. Much of which are 5 axis makers. The best servos to utilize for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brand names. Integrate that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have an effective machine. We will likewise 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 grumble that the small chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On option is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you opt for larger bearings.