Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Moffit, ND 58560
Many are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Moffit, ND. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest many individuals. There’s just on place to get the at a sensible cost which’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Opting for a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Of course, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a perk. 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 can be found in a variety of models from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really small. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for very small work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. The majority of prefer ER25, ER32 or 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 really 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 numerous tool options. 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 come in CNC, handbook and CNC ready versions. Recently, they have added ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you want a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Moffit.
Taig also uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In truth, you can find a great deal of videos and articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items provide a lot more rigid ways and normally more “sturdy” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like an absolutely different mill or lathe. Taig also offers a good CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can also go with their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the same issues as the Sherline. They are far too little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they provide. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now offer a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both makes is the lack of serious upgrades.
Sherline provides lots of parts and accessories, but very little to make it a much better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This indicates the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with very little mass implies the lathe or mill the finish quality will not be as great and based on vibration issues. For example, they use many 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 small. There is a comparable issue with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Moffit, North Dakota 58560 may have different needs.
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other providers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t genuine good. Numerous end up either very dissatisfied or doing a great deal 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 want to go with a CNC machine, your best option is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or many of the hardware choices in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for many years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at best and really only focused on amature use. Centroid is a well established commercial 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 brands. Combine 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 much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Many grumble that the little chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On option is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open up more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you go with bigger bearings.