Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Hustonville, KY 40437
Lots of are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Hustonville, KY. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, appeals to lots of people. There’s just on place to get the at a reasonable rate and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Choosing a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Obviously, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a bonus. The schedule of tooling for each of these designs is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get great quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a range of designs from the factory. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely small. Sherline also offers WW collet sets for really tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Many choose ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger 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 hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides the most versatility and many tool choices. You can find lots of reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise been available in CNC, handbook and CNC ready versions. 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 contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Hustonville.
Taig likewise uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competitors. In reality, you can discover a great deal of videos and posts describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items offer much more rigid ways and generally more “heavy duty” in general. The Taig motors are pretty weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like a completely various mill or lathe. Taig likewise uses a good CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can likewise choose their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the very same issues 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 disadvantage with both produces is the absence of major upgrades.
Sherline offers lots of parts and attachments, but not much to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock usages bad quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This means the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with extremely little mass implies the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as good and based on vibration problems. For instance, they use many lathe accessories, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole has to be small because the bearings are little. There is a similar problem with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Hustonville, Kentucky 40437 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Hustonville
There are other machine alternatives too. You can likewise buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other providers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t genuine excellent. Lots of wind up either very disappointed 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 want to choose a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far better than Mach3 or much of the hardware alternatives in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it uses consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for several years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at best and truly just aimed at amature usage. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. A lot of which are 5 axis machines. The very best servos to utilize 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 also produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of grumble 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 integrated in. This can open up more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you choose bigger bearings.