Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Catheys Valley, CA 95306
Numerous have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Catheys Valley, CA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract numerous individuals. There’s just on place to get the at a reasonable cost and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Choosing a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Naturally, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a perk. The availability of tooling for each of these models is outstanding. For 5C collet sets, you can get great quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a range of designs from the factory. Typically ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very little. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for extremely tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Most choose ER25, ER32 or 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, the majority of truly do not 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 flexibility and lots of tool options. You can find many reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise come in CNC, manual and CNC all set variations. Just recently, they have included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the web if you want an evaluation or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Catheys Valley.
Taig likewise offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In reality, you can discover a lot of videos and articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items use a lot more rigid ways and typically more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a totally different mill or lathe. Taig also uses a nice CNC ready 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 same problems as the Sherline. They are far too little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they use. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now provide a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both makes is the lack of major upgrades.
Sherline offers numerous parts and attachments, but very little to make it a much better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This means the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with very little mass implies the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as great and based on vibration issues. For instance, they offer many lathe accessories, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the pass through hole needs to be little since the bearings are small. There is a similar problem with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Catheys Valley, California 95306 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Catheys Valley
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other suppliers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t genuine excellent. Lots of end up either very dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you desire 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 many 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 standard for many years. However, they were clunky at best and truly only focused on amature use. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. Many of which are 5 axis devices. 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 a powerful machine. We will likewise produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill utilizing the Acorn hardware.
What about a much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of grumble that the small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On choice is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open up more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you choose bigger bearings.