Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Poplar Ridge, NY 13139
Many are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Poplar Ridge, NY. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest lots of individuals. There’s only on location to get the at an affordable cost and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading 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 benefit. The availability of tooling for each of these models is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get very good quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a range of models from the factory. Typically ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really little. Sherline also uses WW collet sets for very tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Most choose ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle go through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, the majority of truly do not care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides one of the most versatility and many tool options. You can find many reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise come in CNC, manual and CNC all set versions. Just recently, they have added ballscrew versions 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 Poplar Ridge.
Taig likewise uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In fact, you can find a lot of videos and articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items offer much more rigid ways and typically more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like a completely different mill or lathe. Taig also offers a great CNC ready mill and lathe. You can also opt for their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the very same problems as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they offer. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now use a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both manufactures is the lack of severe upgrades.
Sherline offers many parts and accessories, however very little to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock usages poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This implies the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with extremely little mass indicates the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as great and subject to vibration problems. For instance, they offer many lathe accessories, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole needs to be little since the bearings are little. There is a similar problem with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this restricts its use. Of course those in Poplar Ridge, New York 13139 may have different needs.
There are other machine choices too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other providers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t genuine good. Numerous end up either very dissatisfied or doing a great deal of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Outstanding upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you prefer to go with a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far 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 constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for many years. However, they were cumbersome at best and actually only aimed at amature usage. Centroid is a well recognized industrial manufacture of mills. A lot of which are 5 axis devices. The best servos to utilize 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 much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of grumble that the small chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On option is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open up more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you choose larger bearings.