Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Chappaqua, NY 10514
Lots of have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Chappaqua, NY. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract many individuals. There’s just on place to get the at an affordable rate which’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Opting for a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Obviously, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a perk. The accessibility of tooling for each of these designs is outstanding. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts can be found in a range of designs from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely little. Sherline likewise provides WW collet sets for really small work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. A lot of prefer ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle go through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, most truly don’t care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers one of the most versatility and numerous tool options. You can find numerous reviews 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 ready versions. Just recently, they have included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the internet if you want a review or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Chappaqua.
Taig also provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competitors. In reality, you can find a great deal of videos and articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products offer much more rigid ways and usually more “strong” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like an absolutely different mill or lathe. Taig likewise uses a good CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can likewise choose their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. The Taig spindles have the same problems as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they provide. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now provide a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both makes is the lack of severe upgrades.
Sherline provides numerous parts and attachments, however very little to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This means the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with very little mass indicates the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as great and based on vibration problems. For example, they offer many lathe devices, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole has to be little since the bearings are small. There is a comparable concern with the mill. You can only utilize ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Chappaqua, New York 10514 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Chappaqua
There are other machine options too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other suppliers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t real good. Lots of wind up either extremely dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you want to go with a CNC machine, your best option is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far much 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 consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for several years. Nevertheless, they were cumbersome at best and truly only targeted at amature use. Centroid is a well established business manufacture of mills. Many of which are 5 axis devices. The best servos to use 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 also produce evaluations 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 will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On choice is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you choose bigger bearings.