Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Ney, OH 43549
Numerous are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Ney, OH. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract lots of people. There’s only on location to get the at a reasonable price which’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Opting for a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Naturally, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a reward. The availability of tooling for each of these designs is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts can be found in a range of designs from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really little. Sherline likewise offers WW collet sets for really tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. A lot of choose ER25, ER32 or 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 really do not care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides the most flexibility and lots of tool options. You can find numerous reviews 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, handbook and CNC ready versions. Just recently, they have actually added ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Search the internet if you desire a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Ney.
Taig likewise offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In fact, you can find a great deal of videos and posts referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products offer much more stiff methods and generally more “sturdy” 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 totally different mill or lathe. Taig also uses a nice CNC ready mill and lathe. You can likewise choose 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 little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they provide. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now use a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both produces is the lack of severe upgrades.
Sherline uses numerous parts and accessories, but very little to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock usages poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This indicates the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with very little mass indicates the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as good and subject to vibration issues. For example, they provide numerous lathe devices, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole needs to be small because the bearings are small. There is a similar problem with the mill. You can just utilize ER16 collets and this restricts its use. Of course those in Ney, Ohio 43549 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Ney
There are other machine choices 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 real excellent. Many wind up either really dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Outstanding upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you want to choose a CNC machine, your best option is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far better than Mach3 or many of the hardware alternatives in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for several years. However, they were cumbersome at best and really only aimed at amature usage. Centroid is a well recognized 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 an effective machine. We will likewise produce evaluations of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of complain that the little chucks won’t 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 choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you choose bigger bearings.