Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Waxhaw, NC 28173
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Waxhaw, NC. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract numerous people. There’s only on location to get the at an affordable price which’s GlockCNC. Upgrading to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Going with a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Obviously, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a bonus. 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. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really little. Sherline also offers WW collet sets for really tiny work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Most choose ER25, ER32 or 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, many actually do not care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides the most flexibility and lots of tool choices. You can find lots of reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise come in CNC, manual and CNC all set 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 a review or comparison of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near Waxhaw.
Taig also uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competition. In reality, you can discover a lot of videos and short articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items provide far more stiff ways and generally more “sturdy” overall. The Taig motors are pretty weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like an absolutely different mill or lathe. Taig also offers 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 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 great thing is that they now provide a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both manufactures is the absence of major upgrades.
Sherline provides lots of parts and attachments, but not much to make it a better machine. To begin with, they headstock usages poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This means the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with really little mass indicates the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as great and based on vibration problems. For example, they offer lots of lathe accessories, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the travel through hole needs to be small because the bearings are little. There is a similar issue with the mill. You can just utilize ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Waxhaw, North Carolina 28173 may have different needs.
There are other machine alternatives too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other providers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t genuine great. Many end up either very disappointed or doing a great deal 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 go with a CNC machine, your best choice is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far better than Mach3 or a number of the hardware choices in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it provides continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for several years. However, they were clunky at finest and truly just focused on amature usage. Centroid is a well recognized commercial manufacture of mills. A number 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. Combine that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have an effective 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 complain that the small chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On choice is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter built in. This can open more choices for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you choose larger bearings.