Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Merrimac, MA 01860
Lots of have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Merrimac, MA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract lots of people. There’s just on location to get the at an affordable price and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading 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 reward. The accessibility of tooling for each of these designs is exceptional. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a range of designs from the factory. Typically ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really small. Sherline also uses WW collet sets for very small work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. The majority of prefer ER25, ER32 and 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, most actually do not care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It uses one of the most versatility and lots of tool options. You can discover many evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise been available in CNC, manual and CNC all set versions. Just recently, they have included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you want a review or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Merrimac.
Taig also uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In reality, you can discover a lot of videos and articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products offer much more rigid methods and generally more “strong” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a completely various mill or lathe. Taig likewise uses a great CNC ready mill and lathe. You can also go with their digital CNC system which utilizes 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 an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The nice 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 lack of major upgrades.
Sherline provides numerous parts and attachments, but very little to make it a better machine. To begin with, they headstock usages bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This means the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with really little mass implies the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as great and based on vibration problems. For instance, they offer lots of lathe devices, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole has to be small since the bearings are small. There is a similar issue with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Merrimac, Massachusetts 01860 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Merrimac
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 real excellent. Lots of wind up either extremely disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Excellent 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 and hardware is far better than Mach3 or many of the hardware options in the market. You can do stiff 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 finest and really just targeted at amature usage. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. Many of which are 5 axis makers. The very best servos to use for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brands. Combine that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have an effective 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? Lots of grumble that the little chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will simply 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 bigger bearings.