Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Hoosick, NY 12089
Many are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Hoosick, NY. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest many people. There’s only on place to get the at a sensible rate which’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Going with a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Obviously, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a bonus. The schedule of tooling for each of these models is outstanding. For 5C collet sets, you can get very good quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a variety of designs from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really little. Sherline also offers WW collet sets for extremely small work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Many prefer ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle pass through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, many really don’t care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It uses the most flexibility and lots of tool choices. You can discover lots of evaluations 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, handbook and CNC prepared versions. Just recently, they have added ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you want an evaluation or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Hoosick.
Taig also uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In truth, you can discover a great deal of videos and posts describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items offer much more stiff ways and usually more “sturdy” in general. The Taig motors are pretty weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like a completely various mill or lathe. Taig likewise offers a nice CNC ready mill and lathe. You can also select 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 little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they provide. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now provide a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both makes is the lack of serious upgrades.
Sherline uses numerous parts and attachments, but very little to make it a much better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This indicates the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with really little mass implies the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as good and subject to vibration problems. For example, they use many lathe devices, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole needs to be little because the bearings are little. There is a similar concern with the mill. You can just utilize ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Hoosick, New York 12089 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Hoosick
There are other machine options too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other providers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t real excellent. Numerous end up either very disappointed or doing a great deal of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Outstanding upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you desire to opt for 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 alternatives in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it uses constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for many years. However, they were clunky at best and actually only targeted at amature use. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. Many of which are 5 axis machines. The best servos to use for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brands. 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 using the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of grumble that the little chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On choice is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open up more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you choose larger bearings.