Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for Rice Lake, WI 54868
Numerous are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Rice Lake, WI. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, appeals to lots of people. There’s just on place to get the at a sensible price which’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Going with a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Obviously, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a benefit. The schedule of tooling for each of these designs is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get great quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a variety of models from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely little. Sherline also offers WW collet sets for very small work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Many choose ER25, ER32 or even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle pass through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, most actually 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 versatility and many tool choices. 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 also can be found 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 web if you want an evaluation or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Rice Lake.
Taig likewise provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In reality, you can find a lot of videos and articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items offer much more stiff methods and generally more “sturdy” overall. 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 likewise provides a good CNC all set mill and lathe. You can also go with their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. 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 provide. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now provide a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both makes is the lack of severe upgrades.
Sherline offers lots of parts and attachments, but not much to make it a much better machine. To begin with, they headstock usages bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This means the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with really little mass means the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as excellent and based on vibration problems. For example, they use lots of lathe devices, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole needs to be small since the bearings are little. There is a comparable concern with the mill. You can only utilize ER16 collets and this restricts its use. Of course those in Rice Lake, Wisconsin 54868 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Rice Lake
There are other machine options too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other providers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t real good. Lots of end up either very disappointed or doing a great deal 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 prefer to go with a CNC machine, your best option is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or many of the hardware choices in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it uses consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for many years. However, they were cumbersome at best and really only aimed at amature use. Centroid is a well recognized commercial 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 brands. Combine that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have a powerful machine. We will also produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill utilizing the Acorn hardware.
What about a much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Many grumble 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 options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you choose larger bearings.