Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Rochester, NY 14602
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Rochester, NY. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest many people. There’s just on place to get the at an affordable price which’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Going with a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Of course, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a benefit. The accessibility 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 been available in a variety of designs from the factory. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really little. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for really small work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Most prefer ER25, ER32 or perhaps ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle travel through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, many really don’t care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides the most flexibility and many tool choices. You can find many evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also can be found in CNC, manual and CNC all set variations. Just recently, they have included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the internet if you want a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Rochester.
Taig likewise provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In fact, you can find a great deal of videos and articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products use a lot more stiff methods and generally more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like a completely different mill or lathe. Taig also uses a great CNC all set 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 little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they provide. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now use a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The disadvantage with both produces is the absence of serious upgrades.
Sherline provides many parts and accessories, but not much to make it a better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This suggests the spindle itself requires to be little. A spindle with very little mass indicates the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as excellent and subject to vibration problems. For example, they use many lathe devices, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the pass through hole has to be little since the bearings are small. There is a similar concern with the mill. You can only utilize ER16 collets and this restricts its use. Of course those in Rochester, New York 14602 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Rochester
There are other machine options too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other providers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t real great. Numerous end up either really dissatisfied or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you desire to opt for a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far 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 offers continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for several years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at finest and truly just aimed at amature use. Centroid is a well recognized commercial manufacture of mills. A lot of which are 5 axis makers. The best servos to use 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 an effective machine. We will also produce evaluations of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of grumble that the little chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On choice is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open up more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you go with larger bearings.