Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Shinglehouse, PA 16748
Lots of have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Shinglehouse, PA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract numerous individuals. There’s only on location to get the at a sensible rate which’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Choosing a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Obviously, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a reward. The availability of tooling for each of these designs is excellent. 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. Usually ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very little. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for very small work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Most prefer ER25, ER32 or perhaps ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle pass through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, the majority of actually do not care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It uses the most flexibility and numerous tool choices. You can find numerous 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, manual and CNC all set variations. Recently, they have added ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Browse the internet if you desire a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Shinglehouse.
Taig also uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competitors. In fact, you can discover a lot of videos and posts describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items use a lot more stiff methods and generally more “sturdy” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a completely different mill or lathe. Taig also provides a good CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can likewise go with 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 small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they offer. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The good thing is that they now offer a ballscrew option for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both makes is the lack of severe upgrades.
Sherline offers numerous parts and attachments, but not much to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This suggests the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with extremely little mass implies the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as good and based on vibration problems. For example, they use numerous lathe devices, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole needs to be small due to the fact that the bearings are small. There is a similar issue with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this limits its usage. Of course those in Shinglehouse, Pennsylvania 16748 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Shinglehouse
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other providers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t genuine good. Many wind up either extremely disappointed 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 go with a CNC machine, your best option is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or a lot of the hardware choices in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for several years. However, they were clunky at best and really just aimed at amature use. Centroid is a well recognized commercial manufacture of mills. Much of which are 5 axis machines. The best servos to use for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brands. Integrate 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 much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Many complain that the little 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 options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you choose larger bearings.