Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Lone Mountain, TN 37773
Numerous are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Lone Mountain, TN. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract numerous individuals. There’s only on place to get the at a reasonable cost and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Going with a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Of course, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a bonus. The accessibility of tooling for each of these designs is outstanding. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a range of models from the factory. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very little. Sherline also offers WW collet sets for really small work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Most choose ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle go through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, many truly do not care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides the most flexibility and many tool choices. You can discover numerous evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also been available in CNC, manual and CNC prepared variations. Recently, they have added ballscrew variations for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you desire a review or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Lone Mountain.
Taig also provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In truth, you can find a great deal of videos and posts describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products use much more rigid methods and generally more “sturdy” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like an absolutely different mill or lathe. Taig likewise offers a great CNC ready mill and lathe. You can likewise choose their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the same problems as the Sherline. They are far too little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they offer. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now offer a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both produces is the lack of serious upgrades.
Sherline offers many parts and accessories, however 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 means the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with extremely little mass indicates the lathe or mill the finish quality will not be as good 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 go through hole needs to be little because the bearings are little. There is a similar issue with the mill. You can only utilize ER16 collets and this restricts its use. Of course those in Lone Mountain, Tennessee 37773 may have different needs.
There are other machine options too. You can likewise buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other providers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t genuine great. Many end up either really disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you prefer to go with a CNC machine, your best option is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far better than Mach3 or many of the hardware alternatives in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it provides consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for several years. However, they were cumbersome at best and actually just focused on amature usage. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. Much of which are 5 axis makers. The best servos to utilize 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 also produce evaluations of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of grumble that the little chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On choice is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open up more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you opt for larger bearings.