Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Lexington, NC 27294
Numerous are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Lexington, NC. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, appeals to many individuals. There’s only on place to get the at a reasonable rate and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Choosing a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Naturally, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a perk. The availability of tooling for each of these designs is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get great quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a variety of models from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very small. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for really tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Most choose ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle pass through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, the majority of actually don’t care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers the most flexibility and many tool options. 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 also can be found in CNC, manual and CNC ready versions. Just recently, they have actually added ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the internet if you want a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Lexington.
Taig also provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In truth, you can find a lot of videos and short articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items provide much more rigid ways and typically more “strong” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like a totally different mill or lathe. Taig also offers a nice CNC ready 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 very same issues as the Sherline. They are far too little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they use. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now offer a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both makes is the absence of serious upgrades.
Sherline offers lots of parts and attachments, however not much to make it a better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This indicates the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with very little mass implies the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as excellent and subject to vibration problems. For example, they use numerous lathe accessories, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the pass through hole has to be small since the bearings are little. There is a comparable concern with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this restricts its use. Of course those in Lexington, North Carolina 27294 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Lexington
There are other machine choices too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other suppliers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t real excellent. Lots of end up either extremely dissatisfied or doing a lot 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 opt for a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or a number of the hardware options in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for many years. Nevertheless, they were cumbersome at finest and really just focused on amature usage. Centroid is a well recognized industrial manufacture of mills. A number of which are 5 axis makers. The very 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 just fall out. On option is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you choose larger bearings.