Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Houston, TX 77262
Numerous are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Houston, TX. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract lots of individuals. There’s just on place to get the at a sensible cost which’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Going with a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Of course, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a reward. The accessibility 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 designs from the factory. Normally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely small. Sherline also offers WW collet sets for very tiny work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Many choose ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle pass through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the 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 one of the most flexibility and many tool choices. You can find many evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also come 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 internet if you desire a review or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Houston.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competitors. In truth, you can find a lot of videos and short articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products use much more stiff ways and generally more “heavy duty” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like a completely various mill or lathe. Taig also provides a good CNC ready mill and lathe. You can also select their digital CNC system which utilizes 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 an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now use a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both manufactures is the lack of serious upgrades.
Sherline uses numerous parts and accessories, however not much to make it a much better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This means the spindle itself requires to be little. A spindle with really little mass indicates the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as good and subject to vibration issues. For instance, they use numerous lathe devices, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the pass through hole has to be little since the bearings are small. There is a similar concern with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Houston, Texas 77262 may have different needs.
There are other machine alternatives too. You can likewise purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other suppliers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t genuine great. Lots of wind up either really disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you prefer to go with a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far better than Mach3 or a number of the hardware choices in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it provides constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for many years. However, they were clunky at finest and actually just focused on amature usage. Centroid is a well established business manufacture of mills. Many of which are 5 axis devices. The 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 an effective machine. We will likewise produce evaluations 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 little chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On alternative is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you choose larger bearings.