Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Los Angeles, CA 90053
Lots of have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Los Angeles, CA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest numerous individuals. There’s just on location to get the at an affordable cost and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Choosing a 5C is ideal 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 great quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a range of designs from the factory. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really small. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for extremely tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Many prefer ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle pass 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 barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers the most flexibility and lots of tool choices. You can find numerous evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also come in CNC, handbook and CNC prepared versions. Recently, they have actually included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much 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 Los Angeles.
Taig also provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In fact, you can find a great deal of videos and posts referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items provide a lot more stiff ways and normally more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a totally various mill or lathe. Taig also provides a nice CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can likewise go with their digital CNC system which uses 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 design they provide. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The good thing is that they now offer a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both manufactures is the absence of serious upgrades.
Sherline provides lots of parts and accessories, but very little to make it a better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This indicates the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with extremely little mass suggests the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as good and based on vibration problems. For instance, they provide numerous lathe devices, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the pass through hole needs to be little because the bearings are little. There is a comparable problem with the mill. You can only utilize ER16 collets and this restricts its use. Of course those in Los Angeles, California 90053 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Los Angeles
There are other machine choices too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other suppliers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t genuine great. Numerous wind up either really dissatisfied 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 desire to choose a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far better than Mach3 or a lot of the hardware options in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for several years. However, they were clunky at best and truly only aimed at amature usage. Centroid is a well established business manufacture of mills. A number of which are 5 axis makers. The best servos to use for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brands. Integrate 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 much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Numerous complain that the little 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. Especially if you go with bigger bearings.