Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Cedar Valley, UT 84013
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Cedar Valley, UT. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract many individuals. There’s just on location to get the at an affordable price and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Choosing a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Obviously, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a reward. The availability of tooling for each of these designs is exceptional. 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 really little. Sherline likewise uses WW collet sets for really tiny work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. The majority of 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, a lot of really do not care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It uses the most versatility and numerous tool choices. You can find numerous evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also can be found in CNC, handbook and CNC all set variations. Just recently, they have added 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 Cedar Valley.
Taig likewise offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In reality, you can discover a lot of videos and short articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products offer far more stiff ways and normally more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like an absolutely various mill or lathe. Taig also uses a nice CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can also select their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. 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 good thing is that they now use a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both produces is the absence of severe upgrades.
Sherline provides many parts and accessories, however very little to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This suggests the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with really little mass means the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as great and subject to 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 go through hole has to be small since the bearings are little. There is a similar problem with the mill. You can only utilize ER16 collets and this limits its usage. Of course those in Cedar Valley, Utah 84013 may have different needs.
There are other machine options too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other suppliers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t real good. Lots of end up either really 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 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 much of the hardware alternatives 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 standard for many years. Nevertheless, they were cumbersome at best and really just focused on amature use. Centroid is a well recognized commercial manufacture of mills. A number of which are 5 axis makers. The best servos to utilize for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brands. Integrate that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have a powerful 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? Numerous complain that the small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On choice is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open up more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you opt for larger bearings.