Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Elgin, IL 60120
Many are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Elgin, IL. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract lots of people. There’s only on place to get the at a sensible price which’s GlockCNC. Upgrading 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 also a perk. The schedule of tooling for each of these designs is outstanding. For 5C collet sets, you can get very good quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a range of models from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really small. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for very tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Many choose ER25, ER32 or perhaps ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle travel through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, a lot of actually do not care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It uses the most flexibility and numerous tool choices. You can discover lots of 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, handbook and CNC ready versions. Recently, they have included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the internet if you want a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Elgin.
Taig likewise offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In fact, you can find a great deal of videos and short articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products provide a lot more stiff methods and usually more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like a completely various mill or lathe. Taig also provides a good CNC all set mill and lathe. You can also opt for their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. The Taig spindles have the exact same problems 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 good thing is that they now provide a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both manufactures is the lack of serious upgrades.
Sherline provides many parts and accessories, however not much 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 needs to be small. A spindle with really little mass indicates the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as great and subject to vibration issues. For instance, they offer many lathe accessories, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the pass through hole has to be small due to the fact that the bearings are small. There is a similar problem with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this restricts its use. Of course those in Elgin, Illinois 60120 may have different needs.
There are other machine options too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other suppliers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t real good. Lots of wind up either really disappointed 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 prefer to opt for a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or a number of the hardware alternatives in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it uses continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for many years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at best and really only focused on amature use. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. A lot of which are 5 axis makers. The best servos to use for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brand names. Integrate that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have an effective 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? Many complain that the little chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On alternative is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you opt for larger bearings.