Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Leroy, TX 76654
Lots of have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Leroy, TX. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest lots of people. There’s only on place to get the at an affordable cost and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Opting for a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Naturally, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a bonus offer. The accessibility of tooling for each of these designs is exceptional. 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. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely small. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for very small work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Most choose ER25, ER32 or 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, the majority of really don’t care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides one of the most flexibility and lots of tool choices. You can find many reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also can be found in CNC, manual and CNC prepared versions. Recently, they have included ballscrew variations 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 Leroy.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competitors. In truth, you can find a lot of videos and short articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products use a lot more rigid methods and typically more “sturdy” overall. 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 likewise uses a good CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can also select their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. The Taig spindles have the exact same issues as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they use. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The good thing is that they now provide a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both produces is the lack of serious upgrades.
Sherline provides many parts and attachments, but not much to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock usages poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This suggests the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with extremely little mass implies the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as good and based on vibration issues. For instance, they provide many lathe devices, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the pass through hole has to be little due to the fact that the bearings are little. There is a similar concern with the mill. You can only utilize ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Leroy, Texas 76654 may have different needs.
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other suppliers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t genuine excellent. Many end 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 prefer to choose a CNC machine, your best option is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or a lot of the hardware choices 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 best and really only focused on amature use. Centroid is a well recognized commercial manufacture of mills. A lot 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. 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 utilizing the Acorn hardware.
What about a much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Numerous grumble that the small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On alternative is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open up more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you opt for larger bearings.