Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Strongstown, PA 15957
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Strongstown, PA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest lots of people. There’s just on location to get the at a reasonable cost and that’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Going with a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Of course, you would require to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a perk. The schedule 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 been available in a range of models from the factory. Normally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really little. Sherline likewise provides WW collet sets for extremely small work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Many choose ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle travel through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, the majority of truly do not care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides one of the most flexibility and numerous tool options. You can discover many 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 included ballscrew variations for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you want an evaluation or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Strongstown.
Taig also provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In reality, you can find a great deal of videos and short articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products offer much more rigid methods and typically more “heavy duty” in general. The Taig motors are pretty weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine look like an absolutely different mill or lathe. Taig also uses a great CNC all set mill and lathe. You can likewise select 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 provide. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now provide a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both manufactures is the lack of major upgrades.
Sherline offers many parts and accessories, but very little to make it a better machine. To begin with, they headstock usages bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This indicates the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with very little mass indicates the lathe or mill the finish quality will not be as good and subject to vibration problems. For example, they provide many lathe accessories, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the pass through hole has to be small since the bearings are small. There is a similar issue with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Strongstown, Pennsylvania 15957 may have different needs.
Video: Sherline CNC in Strongstown
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other providers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t genuine excellent. Lots of end up either very disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded 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 application and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or many of the hardware choices 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 many years. However, they were cumbersome at finest and really just focused on amature usage. Centroid is a well established commercial manufacture of mills. Much of which are 5 axis machines. The very best servos to utilize 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 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? Lots of grumble that the small chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On option is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open up more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you choose larger bearings.