Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Hooper, NE 68031
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Hooper, NE. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest lots of people. There’s just on location to get the at a sensible cost and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Opting for a 5C is perfect 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 designs is outstanding. 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. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very little. Sherline likewise uses WW collet sets for really small work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Most 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, a lot of actually do not care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides the most versatility and many tool options. You can discover numerous reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also been available in CNC, manual and CNC ready versions. Just recently, they have included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the web if you desire a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Hooper.
Taig also provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competitors. In reality, you can find a lot of videos and posts referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items offer far more rigid ways and normally more “sturdy” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like a totally different mill or lathe. Taig also offers a nice CNC ready mill and lathe. You can likewise go with their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. The Taig spindles have the very same issues as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they offer. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now provide a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both makes is the absence of serious upgrades.
Sherline uses lots of parts and accessories, but not much to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This indicates the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with really little mass indicates the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as good and subject to vibration issues. For instance, they use lots of lathe accessories, but 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 small. There is a comparable problem with the mill. You can only utilize ER16 collets and this restricts its use. Of course those in Hooper, Nebraska 68031 may have different needs.
There are other machine alternatives too. You can likewise purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other suppliers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t real good. Lots of wind up either very dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Outstanding upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you desire to go with a CNC machine, your best option is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far better than Mach3 or many of the hardware options in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for several years. Nevertheless, they were cumbersome at best and really only targeted at amature usage. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. Much of which are 5 axis machines. 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 an effective machine. We will also produce reviews 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 small chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On alternative is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you choose larger bearings.