Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Peetz, CO 80747
Numerous have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Peetz, CO. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest lots of people. There’s just on location to get the at a sensible price and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading 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 bonus offer. The accessibility of tooling for each of these designs is outstanding. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a variety of models from the factory. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very little. Sherline likewise offers WW collet sets for very tiny work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Many prefer ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger 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 numerous tool choices. You can find many reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise been available in CNC, manual and CNC prepared versions. Just recently, they have 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 Peetz.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In fact, you can find a great deal of videos and short articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products provide much more stiff ways and usually 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 seem like a totally different mill or lathe. Taig also offers a nice CNC all set mill and lathe. You can also select 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 little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they use. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now use a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both makes is the lack of major upgrades.
Sherline provides many parts and attachments, but not much to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock usages bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This suggests the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with really little mass indicates the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as good and subject to vibration problems. For example, they offer numerous lathe devices, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole has to be small due to the fact that the bearings are little. There is a similar problem with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Peetz, Colorado 80747 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Peetz
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. Of course the quality isn’t genuine good. Many end up either extremely disappointed 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 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 lot of the hardware options in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for several years. Nevertheless, they were cumbersome at best and really just aimed at amature usage. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. Much of which are 5 axis machines. The best servos to use 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 much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of complain 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 built in. This can open up more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you choose bigger bearings.