Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Driggs, ID 83422
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Driggs, ID. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest many people. There’s just on place to get the at a reasonable rate which’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Opting for a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Obviously, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a perk. 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 can be found in a variety of models from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really small. Sherline likewise uses WW collet sets for extremely small work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. A lot of choose ER25, ER32 and 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, a lot of truly do not care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It uses one of the most versatility and numerous tool choices. You can find many reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise come in CNC, handbook and CNC ready versions. Just 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 contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Driggs.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In reality, you can find a lot of videos and short articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products use much more rigid ways and generally more “sturdy” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like a completely different mill or lathe. Taig also uses a nice CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can also choose their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the exact same problems as the Sherline. They are far too little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they provide. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now use a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both makes is the absence of serious upgrades.
Sherline uses many parts and attachments, but very little to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock usages bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This means the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with extremely little mass means the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as great and subject to vibration problems. For example, they offer many lathe devices, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole has to be small because the bearings are little. There is a similar problem with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Driggs, Idaho 83422 may have different needs.
There are other machine choices too. You can likewise purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other suppliers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t genuine great. Numerous end up either extremely disappointed or doing a great deal of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you desire to choose a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far better than Mach3 or much of the hardware choices 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 requirement for many years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at best and truly only targeted at amature use. Centroid is a well recognized industrial manufacture of mills. A number of which are 5 axis devices. The very best servos to utilize 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 likewise produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Numerous grumble that the little 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 choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you opt for bigger bearings.