Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Honolulu, HI 96835
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Honolulu, HI. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract numerous people. There’s just on location to get the at an affordable cost and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Choosing a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Obviously, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a benefit. The availability of tooling for each of these designs is exceptional. For 5C collet sets, you can get great quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts can be found in a range of designs from the factory. Normally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very small. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for really tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Many choose 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, the majority of really don’t care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers one of the most flexibility and lots of tool options. You can find lots of evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also can be found in CNC, manual and CNC ready variations. Just recently, they have included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you want an evaluation or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Honolulu.
Taig likewise offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In fact, you can find a great deal of videos and posts referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products use far more rigid methods and usually 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 likewise provides a good CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can likewise go with their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. 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 provide. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now provide a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both produces is the lack of severe upgrades.
Sherline provides lots of parts and attachments, however very little to make it a better machine. To begin with, they headstock usages poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This means the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with really little mass implies the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as good and subject to vibration issues. For instance, they provide numerous lathe devices, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole needs to be small since the bearings are little. There is a similar issue with the mill. You can just utilize ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Honolulu, Hawaii 96835 may have different needs.
There are other machine options too. You can likewise purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other providers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t real good. Many end up either really disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you desire to choose 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 provides continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for several years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at finest and truly only 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 utilize for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brands. Integrate that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have an effective machine. We will likewise produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill utilizing 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 just fall out. On option is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you choose bigger bearings.