Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Turner, OR 97392
Many are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Turner, OR. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract lots of people. There’s only on location to get the at an affordable price which’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Choosing a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Naturally, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a perk. The availability of tooling for each of these designs is outstanding. 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. Normally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very small. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for extremely tiny work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Most prefer ER25, ER32 and 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, many actually do not care for the MT1 and hardly like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers the most flexibility and lots of tool options. You can find many reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise can be found in CNC, handbook and CNC ready versions. Just recently, they have actually added ballscrew versions 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 Turner.
Taig also offers lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competitors. In fact, you can find a lot of videos and articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products provide far more rigid ways and usually more “sturdy” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a completely different mill or lathe. Taig likewise provides a great CNC all set mill and lathe. You can likewise choose their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. The Taig spindles have the very same issues as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they provide. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now provide a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both manufactures is the absence of major upgrades.
Sherline uses many parts and attachments, however very little to make it a much better machine. To start with, they headstock uses bad quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This implies the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with extremely little mass suggests the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as good and subject to vibration problems. For instance, they use many lathe accessories, however 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 comparable problem with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this restricts its use. Of course those in Turner, Oregon 97392 may have different needs.
There are other machine options too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other suppliers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t genuine great. Lots of wind up either really dissatisfied or doing a great deal of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you want to opt for a CNC machine, your best option is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far better than Mach3 or much of the hardware choices in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for several years. However, they were cumbersome at best and really just aimed at amature use. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. Many 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. Integrate that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have a powerful machine. We will likewise 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? Numerous grumble that the little chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On alternative is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open up more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you choose larger bearings.