Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Fiddletown, CA 95629
Lots of have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Fiddletown, CA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract lots of individuals. There’s just on place to get the at an affordable cost which’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Choosing a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Naturally, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a perk. The schedule of tooling for each of these models is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get very good quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a range of designs from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very little. Sherline also uses WW collet sets for really tiny work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Most choose ER25, ER32 or perhaps ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle pass through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, many truly do not care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides 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 also come in CNC, manual and CNC ready variations. Just recently, they have actually included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the web if you want an evaluation or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Fiddletown.
Taig also provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In fact, you can find a great deal of videos and articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items provide far more rigid ways and typically more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a totally various mill or lathe. Taig also uses a good CNC ready mill and lathe. You can also go with their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the very same issues as the Sherline. They are far too little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they provide. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now offer a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both makes is the absence of severe upgrades.
Sherline offers lots of parts and accessories, but very little to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This suggests the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with very little mass means the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as excellent and based on vibration issues. For instance, they offer lots of lathe devices, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the pass through hole needs to be little due to the fact that the bearings are little. There is a similar issue with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Fiddletown, California 95629 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Fiddletown
There are other machine options too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other providers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t genuine good. Lots of wind up either really dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you desire to choose a CNC machine, your best option is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far much 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 consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for several years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at best and really just aimed at amature usage. Centroid is a well established business manufacture of mills. A number of which are 5 axis devices. The best servos to use 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 an effective machine. We will also produce evaluations of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Numerous complain that the small chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On alternative is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open up more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you opt for larger bearings.