Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Saint Mary, MO 63673
Many are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Saint Mary, MO. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract many people. There’s only on place to get the at a reasonable cost and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Opting for a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Naturally, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a benefit. The schedule of tooling for each of these models is outstanding. For 5C collet sets, you can get great quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts been available in a range of models from the factory. Normally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really little. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for extremely tiny work. Primarily watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Most choose ER25, ER32 or perhaps ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle pass through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, most really don’t care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers one of the most flexibility and lots of tool choices. You can discover many evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also come in CNC, handbook and CNC prepared variations. Just recently, they have added ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Search the internet if you want an evaluation or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Saint Mary.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In fact, you can find a great deal of videos and articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products use far more rigid ways and normally more “sturdy” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like a completely different mill or lathe. Taig also provides a great CNC ready mill and lathe. You can likewise 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 design they use. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The nice 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 makes is the absence of severe upgrades.
Sherline uses many parts and attachments, but very little to make it a much better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This suggests the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with extremely little mass means the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as good and based on vibration problems. For instance, they offer numerous lathe accessories, 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 little. There is a similar concern with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Saint Mary, Missouri 63673 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Saint Mary
There are other machine choices too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other providers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t genuine excellent. Many wind up either very disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you prefer to choose a CNC machine, your best option is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far better than Mach3 or many of the hardware options in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it uses consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for several years. However, they were clunky at best and actually only aimed at amature usage. 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 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 utilizing the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Numerous grumble that the small chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On option is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open up more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you opt for bigger bearings.