Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Moose Lake, MN 55767
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Moose Lake, MN. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, appeals to lots of individuals. There’s only on location to get the at a reasonable rate which’s GlockCNC. Upgrading 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 accessibility of tooling for each of these designs is exceptional. 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 very little. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for very tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Most choose ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle go through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, the majority of really do not care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers the most versatility and lots of tool choices. You can discover lots of evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also can be found in CNC, handbook and CNC ready variations. Just recently, they have actually included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the internet if you desire an evaluation or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Moose Lake.
Taig also uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In fact, you can find a great deal of videos and posts referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products offer a lot more rigid methods and usually more “strong” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like an absolutely different mill or lathe. Taig likewise provides a good CNC ready mill and lathe. You can also choose their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. The Taig spindles have the exact same issues as the Sherline. They are far too little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they use. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now provide a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both produces is the lack of major upgrades.
Sherline offers many parts and accessories, but not much to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This means the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with very little mass indicates the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as good and based on vibration issues. For instance, they provide numerous lathe accessories, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole has to be little since the bearings are small. There is a comparable problem with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this restricts its use. Of course those in Moose Lake, Minnesota 55767 may have different needs.
There are other machine options too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other suppliers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t real good. Many wind up either very disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you desire to choose a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or much of the hardware options 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 several years. Nevertheless, they were cumbersome at best and really only targeted at amature use. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. Many of which are 5 axis devices. The best servos to use for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brand names. Integrate 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 utilizing the Acorn hardware.
What about a much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of grumble that the small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On alternative is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you choose larger bearings.