Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Twin Brooks, SD 57269
Numerous are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Twin Brooks, SD. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest numerous people. There’s only on place to get the at an affordable price which’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Opting for a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Obviously, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a reward. 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 come in a variety of designs from the factory. Typically ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very little. Sherline also offers WW collet sets for very tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Many 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 very best. For Sherline mills, most really do not care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers one of the most flexibility and many tool choices. You can find numerous evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also been available in CNC, handbook and CNC prepared versions. Recently, they have added ballscrew versions for sale. This is far much better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you want a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Twin Brooks.
Taig also provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In fact, you can find a great deal of videos and short articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items offer a lot more stiff methods and normally more “heavy duty” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, just 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 prepared mill and lathe. You can also select their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. The Taig spindles have the exact 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 good thing is that they now use a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both makes is the lack of severe upgrades.
Sherline offers lots of parts and accessories, but not much to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock uses poor 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 won’t be as good and based on vibration issues. For example, they provide many lathe devices, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole needs to be little due to the fact that the bearings are small. There is a comparable issue with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in Twin Brooks, South Dakota 57269 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Twin Brooks
There are other machine options too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, in addition to other providers that provide Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t real good. Many wind up either extremely disappointed or doing a great deal of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Outstanding upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you prefer to go with a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far better than Mach3 or much of the hardware alternatives in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for many years. Nevertheless, they were cumbersome at finest and truly just focused on amature usage. Centroid is a well established business manufacture of mills. A lot of which are 5 axis devices. The very best servos to utilize for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brands. 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 using the Acorn hardware.
What about a much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Lots of grumble that the little chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On option is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Especially if you opt for larger bearings.