Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Johnstown, PA 15906
Numerous are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Johnstown, PA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest numerous people. There’s only on location to get the at an affordable cost and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Opting for a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Obviously, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a bonus. The availability of tooling for each of these designs is exceptional. For 5C collet sets, you can get very good quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts can be found in a variety of models from the factory. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really little. Sherline likewise provides WW collet sets for really small work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Most prefer ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle go through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, a lot of really do not care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It uses one of the most flexibility and many tool options. 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, manual and CNC prepared versions. Just recently, they have actually added ballscrew variations for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the internet if you want an evaluation or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Johnstown.
Taig likewise provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In fact, you can discover a great deal of videos and posts describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items use a lot more stiff ways and typically more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a completely different mill or lathe. Taig also offers a good CNC prepared 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 very same problems 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 nice thing is that they now offer a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both produces is the absence of severe upgrades.
Sherline offers numerous parts and attachments, but very little to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This suggests the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with extremely little mass means the lathe or mill the finish quality will not be as good and based on vibration issues. For example, they use numerous lathe devices, but 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 small. There is a comparable concern with the mill. You can just utilize ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Johnstown, Pennsylvania 15906 may have different needs.
There are other machine alternatives too. You can likewise purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other suppliers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t real excellent. Numerous wind up either extremely dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you prefer to opt for a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far better than Mach3 or much of the hardware options in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for many years. However, they were clunky at finest and truly just aimed at amature usage. Centroid is a well recognized business manufacture of mills. Much of which are 5 axis devices. The 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 an effective machine. We will likewise produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Many grumble that the small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On choice is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you go with bigger bearings.