Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Flat Rock, NC 28731
Lots of are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Flat Rock, NC. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest numerous people. There’s just on location to get the at a reasonable rate and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Going with a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Obviously, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a benefit. The accessibility 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 can be found in a range of models from the factory. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very small. Sherline likewise uses WW collet sets for really tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Many choose ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle go 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 flexibility 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 prepared versions. Just recently, they have added ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you want a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Flat Rock.
Taig likewise offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In truth, you can find a great deal of videos and articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products use much more stiff ways and generally more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like a completely different mill or lathe. Taig likewise uses a great CNC all set mill and lathe. You can also go with their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. The Taig spindles have the very same problems as the Sherline. They are far too small. 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 provide a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both manufactures is the absence of severe upgrades.
Sherline offers many parts and attachments, but not much to make it a much better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This suggests the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with extremely little mass indicates the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as excellent and based on vibration issues. For example, they provide many lathe devices, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole needs to be little due to the fact that the bearings are little. There is a similar problem with the mill. You can just utilize ER16 collets and this limits its usage. Of course those in Flat Rock, North Carolina 28731 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Flat Rock
There are other machine choices too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other suppliers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t genuine excellent. Lots of wind 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 prefer to choose a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far better than Mach3 or a lot of the hardware choices in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it uses consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for several years. Nevertheless, they were cumbersome at finest and truly just targeted at amature usage. Centroid is a well established business manufacture of mills. Many 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 brand names. Integrate that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have a powerful machine. We will also produce evaluations 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 small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On option is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open up more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you go with bigger bearings.