Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Lady Lake, FL 32162
Lots of are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Lady Lake, FL. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract many people. There’s just on location to get the at a sensible rate and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Choosing a 5C is ideal 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 very good quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a variety of designs from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely little. Sherline also offers WW collet sets for extremely small work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Most prefer ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle travel through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, a lot of truly do not care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It uses the most versatility and numerous 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 likewise come in CNC, handbook and CNC all set versions. Recently, they have added ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you want a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Lady Lake.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competitors. In fact, you can discover a great deal of videos and short articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products provide much more rigid ways and normally more “heavy duty” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like a totally different mill or lathe. Taig also provides a nice CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can also select their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the very 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 great thing is that they now use a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both makes is the absence of serious upgrades.
Sherline uses many parts and accessories, however very little to make it a much better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This implies the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with very little mass implies the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as good and subject to vibration problems. For instance, they provide 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 due to the fact that the bearings are little. There is a comparable concern with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this limits its usage. Of course those in Lady Lake, Florida 32162 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Lady Lake
There are other machine options too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other suppliers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t genuine great. Many end up either really disappointed or doing a great deal of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you prefer to choose a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or much of the hardware options in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it provides constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for several years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at best and really just targeted at amature use. Centroid is a well established business manufacture of mills. Many of which are 5 axis makers. 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 a powerful machine. We will also produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill utilizing 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 just fall out. On alternative is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you choose bigger bearings.