Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Kinsley, KS 67547
Numerous are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Kinsley, KS. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract numerous people. There’s just on location to get the at a reasonable cost and that’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 need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a benefit. The availability of tooling for each of these designs is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get very good quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a variety of models from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really small. Sherline likewise provides WW collet sets for very small work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Most prefer ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle go 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 hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It uses one of the most versatility and numerous tool options. You can find many evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise come in CNC, handbook and CNC ready versions. Just recently, they have included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Search the internet if you want an evaluation or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Kinsley.
Taig also uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In truth, you can find a great deal of videos and articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items offer far more rigid ways and usually more “strong” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like a completely different 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. The Taig spindles have the same issues as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they offer. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now use a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both produces is the lack of major upgrades.
Sherline offers many parts and attachments, but not much to make it a 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 suggests the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as great and subject to vibration issues. For example, they offer many lathe devices, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole needs to be little due to the fact that 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 Kinsley, Kansas 67547 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Kinsley
There are other machine options too. You can likewise purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other suppliers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t real great. Lots of end up either very disappointed 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 want to choose a CNC machine, your best option is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or a lot of the hardware options 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 requirement for many years. Nevertheless, they were cumbersome at best and really only focused on amature use. Centroid is a well recognized industrial manufacture of mills. A number 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. Combine that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have a powerful machine. We will likewise produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill utilizing the Acorn hardware.
What about a much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Many grumble that the small chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On choice is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open up more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you go with bigger bearings.