Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Fort Loudon, PA 17224
Lots of are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Fort Loudon, PA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract many people. There’s only on place to get the at a reasonable rate 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 also 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 can be found in a variety of models from the factory. Normally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really small. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for really small work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Many prefer ER25, ER32 or perhaps ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle go 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 barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides the most flexibility and lots of tool options. You can find many reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise been available in CNC, manual and CNC prepared versions. Just recently, they have included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you desire an evaluation or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Fort Loudon.
Taig likewise provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competitors. In fact, you can find a great deal of videos and posts referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items use far more rigid ways and typically more “strong” in general. The Taig motors are pretty weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like an absolutely various mill or lathe. Taig likewise uses a great CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can likewise opt for their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the same problems as the Sherline. They are far too small. 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 drawback with both manufactures is the lack of major upgrades.
Sherline offers numerous parts and attachments, but very little to make it a much better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This means the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with very little mass suggests the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as good and based on vibration problems. For example, they offer many lathe devices, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole needs to be little because the bearings are little. There is a comparable issue with the mill. You can only utilize ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Fort Loudon, Pennsylvania 17224 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Fort Loudon
There are other machine choices too. You can likewise buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other suppliers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t real good. Lots of end up either extremely dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. 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 much better than Mach3 or much of the hardware alternatives in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it uses continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for several years. Nevertheless, they were cumbersome at best and actually just aimed at amature use. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. Much 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 utilizing the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Numerous complain that the little chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On choice is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you go with larger bearings.