Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Midland, TX 79701
Lots of are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Midland, TX. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract numerous people. There’s only on place to get the at a reasonable cost and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Choosing a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Obviously, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a bonus. The availability of tooling for each of these models is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get great quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a range of designs from the factory. Normally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely little. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for really small work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. The majority of prefer ER25, ER32 or perhaps ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle travel through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, many truly don’t care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It uses one of the most versatility and numerous tool options. 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 been available in CNC, manual and CNC prepared versions. Just recently, they have added ballscrew variations for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the internet if you want a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Midland.
Taig likewise offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competitors. In reality, you can find a great deal of videos and short articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items provide much more stiff ways and typically more “heavy duty” in general. The Taig motors are pretty weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like a completely 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. The Taig spindles have the exact same problems as the Sherline. They are far too little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they provide. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The good thing is that they now provide a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both manufactures is the absence of major upgrades.
Sherline provides lots of parts and accessories, however very little to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock usages bad quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This suggests the spindle itself requires to be little. A spindle with extremely little mass means the lathe or mill the finish quality will not be as great and based on vibration issues. For example, they offer many lathe devices, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole needs to be small because the bearings are little. There is a comparable problem with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Midland, Texas 79701 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Midland
There are other machine options too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other suppliers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t genuine great. Lots of wind up either really dissatisfied 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 desire to go with a CNC machine, your best bet 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 consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for many years. However, they were cumbersome at finest and really just aimed at amature use. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. Much of which are 5 axis devices. The best servos to utilize 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 likewise produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Many 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 built in. This can open more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you go with larger bearings.