Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Greenland, NH 03840
Lots of are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Greenland, NH. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract many people. There’s just on location to get the at an affordable rate and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Going with a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Obviously, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a bonus offer. The schedule 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 range of models from the factory. Normally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely small. Sherline also offers WW collet sets for extremely tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Many prefer ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle travel through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, most really don’t care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers one of the most flexibility and numerous 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 come in CNC, handbook and CNC ready versions. Recently, they have added ballscrew variations 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 Greenland.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In reality, you can find a lot of videos and short articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items offer far more stiff methods and usually more “strong” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a totally different mill or lathe. Taig also uses a nice CNC ready mill and lathe. You can also choose their digital CNC system which uses 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 model they offer. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now offer a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both produces is the lack of severe upgrades.
Sherline uses lots of parts and accessories, but very little to make it a much better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This indicates the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with very little mass means the lathe or mill the finish quality will not be as excellent and subject to vibration problems. For instance, they use many lathe accessories, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole has to be small since the bearings are little. There is a comparable problem with the mill. You can only utilize ER16 collets and this limits its usage. Of course those in Greenland, New Hampshire 03840 may have different needs.
There are other machine choices too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other suppliers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t genuine good. Many wind up either extremely disappointed or doing a lot 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 go with a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far better than Mach3 or many of the hardware options 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 many years. However, they were cumbersome at best and really just aimed at amature usage. Centroid is a well recognized 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. Combine that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have a powerful machine. We will likewise produce evaluations of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Numerous grumble that the little chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On option is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you opt for larger bearings.