Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Des Moines, IA 50368
Many are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Des Moines, IA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract many individuals. There’s just on location to get the at an affordable rate and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Choosing a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Naturally, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a perk. The availability of tooling for each of these models is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get great 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 very little. Sherline also uses WW collet sets for really small work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. A lot of prefer ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle travel through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, a lot of actually don’t care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It uses one of the most versatility and lots of tool choices. You can find lots of evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also come in CNC, manual and CNC all set variations. Recently, they have added ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the internet if you desire a review or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Des Moines.
Taig likewise uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In reality, you can discover a great deal of videos and posts referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products offer much more stiff ways and usually more “heavy duty” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like a totally different mill or lathe. Taig also provides a nice CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can also choose their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the same issues as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they offer. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now provide a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both produces is the absence of major upgrades.
Sherline uses lots of parts and accessories, however not much to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This indicates the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with extremely little mass indicates the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as great and subject to vibration issues. For instance, they provide numerous lathe devices, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole has to be little due to the fact that the bearings are small. There is a comparable issue with the mill. You can just utilize ER16 collets and this limits its usage. Of course those in Des Moines, Iowa 50368 may have different needs.
There are other machine alternatives too. You can likewise buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other providers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t genuine great. Numerous end up either very disappointed or doing a great deal 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 want to choose a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far better than Mach3 or much of the hardware alternatives in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it uses constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for several years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at best and actually only focused on amature use. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. A lot of which are 5 axis makers. The very 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 better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of grumble that the small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On alternative is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you opt for larger bearings.