Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Pinecliffe, CO 80471
Lots of have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Pinecliffe, CO. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest numerous people. There’s only on location to get the at an affordable cost which’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Going with a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Of course, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a bonus. The availability of tooling for each of these designs is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get great quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a range of designs from the factory. Typically ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely little. Sherline also offers WW collet sets for really tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. The majority of prefer ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle go through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, many actually don’t care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It uses one of the most versatility and lots of tool choices. You can find lots of reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also been available in CNC, manual and CNC all set versions. Recently, they have included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you desire an evaluation or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Pinecliffe.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In reality, you can discover a great deal of videos and short articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items use a lot more rigid methods and generally more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like a completely various mill or lathe. Taig also uses a nice CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can likewise select their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the very same issues as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they provide. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The good thing is that they now offer a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both manufactures is the absence of severe upgrades.
Sherline offers numerous parts and accessories, however not much to make it a much better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This means the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with very little mass means the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as excellent and based on vibration problems. For example, they use many lathe devices, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole has to be small because the bearings are small. There is a similar issue with the mill. You can only utilize ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Pinecliffe, Colorado 80471 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Pinecliffe
There are other machine choices 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 wind up either very disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you want 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 rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it uses continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for many years. However, they were cumbersome at best and really only targeted at amature use. 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 a powerful machine. We will likewise produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill utilizing the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Many grumble that the small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On alternative is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open up more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you opt for bigger bearings.