Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Dardanelle, CA 95314
Many are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Dardanelle, CA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, appeals to lots of people. There’s just on place to get the at a reasonable rate and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Choosing 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 designs is exceptional. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts can be found in a range of models from the factory. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely small. Sherline also uses 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 do not care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers the most versatility and many 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 likewise come in CNC, manual and CNC ready variations. Recently, they have included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the internet if you want a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Dardanelle.
Taig likewise offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In reality, you can find a lot of videos and articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products offer a lot more rigid ways and typically more “strong” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like an absolutely various mill or lathe. Taig likewise uses a good CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can also opt for their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. The Taig spindles have the same issues as the Sherline. They are far too little. 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 deal a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both produces is the absence of major upgrades.
Sherline offers many parts and attachments, however not much to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This means the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with really little mass implies the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as excellent and based on vibration issues. 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 needs to be small due to the fact that the bearings are little. There is a comparable problem with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Dardanelle, California 95314 may have different needs.
There are other machine options too. You can likewise buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other providers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t real excellent. Many end up either really disappointed 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 prefer to choose a CNC machine, your best choice 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 constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for many years. Nevertheless, they were cumbersome at best and actually only aimed 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. Integrate 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 using the Acorn hardware.
What about a much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of complain that the small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On option is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you go with bigger bearings.