Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Prairie City, IL 61470
Lots of have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Prairie City, IL. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract lots of people. There’s only on place to get the at a sensible price and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Choosing a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Obviously, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a bonus. The availability of tooling for each of these models is exceptional. For 5C collet sets, you can get very good quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts can be found in a range of models from the factory. Typically ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very little. Sherline also offers WW collet sets for really tiny work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. The majority of choose ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle travel through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, the majority of really don’t care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It uses the most flexibility and numerous tool options. 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 ready versions. Recently, they have included ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the internet if you desire an evaluation or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Prairie City.
Taig likewise provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competitors. In truth, you can find a lot of videos and posts referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products provide much more rigid ways and generally more “strong” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like an absolutely various mill or lathe. Taig also uses a great CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can also choose their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. 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 good thing is that they now offer a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both makes is the absence of serious upgrades.
Sherline provides lots of parts and accessories, but very little to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This means the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with really little mass suggests the lathe or mill the finish quality will not be as excellent and subject to vibration issues. For example, they offer lots of 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 comparable issue with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Prairie City, Illinois 61470 may have different needs.
There are other machine options too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other suppliers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t real great. Lots of end up either very dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Excellent 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 much 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 offers continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for many years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at best and really just targeted at amature use. Centroid is a well recognized commercial manufacture of mills. Many 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. Combine that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have an effective machine. We will also produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Numerous grumble that the small chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On choice is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you opt for larger bearings.