Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Kansas City, KS 66117
Lots of have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Kansas City, KS. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, appeals to lots of individuals. There’s just on place to get the at a reasonable price and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Choosing a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Naturally, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a reward. The accessibility of tooling for each of these models is outstanding. For 5C collet sets, you can get great 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 utilize the WW collets. The majority of 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, many actually don’t care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides one of the most versatility and numerous tool options. You can find numerous evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also come in CNC, handbook and CNC prepared variations. Just recently, they have added ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the internet if you desire a review or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Kansas City.
Taig likewise uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In fact, you can find a lot of videos and articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products use a lot more rigid methods and generally more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like an absolutely different mill or lathe. Taig also offers a good CNC all set mill and lathe. You can likewise go with their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. The Taig spindles have the same problems as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they use. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The good thing is that they now offer a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both produces is the absence of serious upgrades.
Sherline offers many parts and accessories, however not much to make it a better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This suggests the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with extremely little mass suggests the lathe or mill the finish quality will not be as good and based on vibration problems. For instance, they use many lathe accessories, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole has to be small because the bearings are small. There is a similar concern with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this restricts its use. Of course those in Kansas City, Kansas 66117 may have different needs.
There are other machine options too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other suppliers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t real great. Many wind up either very dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you want to opt for a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software application 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 standard for many years. However, they were cumbersome at finest and truly just focused on amature usage. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. Many of which are 5 axis machines. The best servos to utilize 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 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? Numerous grumble that the little 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 go with bigger bearings.