Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Cedarvale, NM 87009
Lots of have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Cedarvale, NM. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract lots of people. There’s only on place to get the at an affordable cost 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 need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a benefit. The accessibility of tooling for each of these models is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a variety of models from the factory. Normally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely small. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for really tiny work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. The majority of prefer ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle pass through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, most really don’t care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides one of the most versatility and many tool options. You can find many evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also been available in CNC, manual and CNC ready variations. Recently, they have included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the internet if you desire an evaluation or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Cedarvale.
Taig also provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In truth, you can find a great deal of videos and articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items provide far more stiff ways and usually more “strong” in general. The Taig motors are pretty weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a completely various mill or lathe. Taig also provides a great CNC all set mill and lathe. You can likewise select their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the very same issues as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they provide. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The good thing is that they now use a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both manufactures is the absence of major upgrades.
Sherline provides many parts and accessories, however very little to make it a better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This suggests the spindle itself requires to be little. A spindle with very little mass means the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as great and based on vibration problems. For example, 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 small because the bearings are little. There is a similar issue with the mill. You can only utilize ER16 collets and this restricts its use. Of course those in Cedarvale, New Mexico 87009 may have different needs.
There are other machine choices too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other providers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t real excellent. Numerous end up either extremely dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you prefer to go with a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far better than Mach3 or a lot of the hardware options in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it provides constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for several years. However, they were clunky at finest and truly only focused on amature use. Centroid is a well established business manufacture of mills. A lot of which are 5 axis machines. The best servos to use 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 also 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 little chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On alternative is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you opt for larger bearings.