Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Oklahoma City, OK 73104
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Oklahoma City, OK. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest lots of people. There’s only on location 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. Naturally, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a perk. The accessibility of tooling for each of these designs is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a variety of models from the factory. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really little. Sherline likewise provides WW collet sets for extremely tiny work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers utilize 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, a lot of truly do not care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides one of the most flexibility and many tool options. You can find lots of reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise can be found in CNC, handbook and CNC all set variations. Just recently, they have added ballscrew versions for sale. This is far 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 Oklahoma City.
Taig likewise uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In fact, you can find a great deal of videos and articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products provide much more stiff ways and normally more “strong” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a completely different mill or lathe. Taig also uses a good CNC all set mill and lathe. You can also opt for their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. The Taig spindles have the same issues as the Sherline. They are far too small. 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 offer a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both makes is the absence of severe upgrades.
Sherline uses lots of parts and attachments, however not much to make it a much better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This means the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with extremely little mass suggests the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as good and based on vibration problems. 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 has to be little because the bearings are little. There is a similar concern with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73104 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Oklahoma City
There are other machine alternatives too. You can likewise purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other providers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t genuine excellent. Many wind up either really disappointed or doing a great deal of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you prefer to opt for a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far 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 provides continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for many years. However, they were clunky at best and really only aimed at amature use. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. A number 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 using the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Many complain 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 opt for bigger bearings.