Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Greeley, KS 66033
Numerous have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Greeley, KS. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, appeals to many people. There’s just on place to get the at a sensible cost and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Going with a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Of course, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a reward. The schedule of tooling for each of these designs is outstanding. For 5C collet sets, you can get great quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a range of designs from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really little. Sherline likewise provides WW collet sets for really tiny work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. A lot of prefer ER25, ER32 and 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, many truly don’t care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers the most versatility and numerous tool options. You can discover many evaluations 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, handbook and CNC prepared variations. Recently, they have added ballscrew variations for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the web if you desire an evaluation or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Greeley.
Taig also provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competitors. In truth, you can find a great deal of videos and articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products use much more stiff methods and normally more “heavy duty” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like an absolutely different mill or lathe. Taig also uses a great CNC all set mill and lathe. You can also select their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the exact same issues as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they use. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The good thing is that they now use a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both makes is the lack of severe upgrades.
Sherline offers lots of parts and attachments, however not much to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This suggests the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with really little mass suggests the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as good and subject to vibration problems. For instance, they offer many lathe accessories, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole needs to be small since the bearings are little. There is a similar concern with the mill. You can only utilize ER16 collets and this limits its usage. Of course those in Greeley, Kansas 66033 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Greeley
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other providers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t real great. Many wind up either really dissatisfied or doing a great deal of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you want to go with a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software 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 provides consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for several years. However, they were cumbersome at best and really only focused on amature usage. Centroid is a well recognized industrial manufacture of mills. Much of which are 5 axis makers. 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 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? Many complain that the small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On alternative is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open up more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you opt for larger bearings.