Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Weiser, ID 83672
Lots of are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Weiser, ID. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, appeals to many individuals. There’s only on location to get the at an affordable cost and that’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 likewise a reward. The accessibility of tooling for each of these designs is outstanding. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a variety of models from the factory. Typically ER16 and MT1. Both of which are extremely small. Sherline also provides WW collet sets for really tiny work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Most prefer ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle go through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the very best. For Sherline mills, most truly don’t 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 many reviews on both the lathe and the mill. Popular designs are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise can be found in CNC, handbook and CNC ready variations. Recently, they have added ballscrew versions for sale. This is far 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 Weiser.
Taig likewise uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In reality, you can discover a lot of videos and posts referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items use much more stiff methods and typically more “heavy duty” in general. The Taig motors are pretty weak, similar to the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a completely various mill or lathe. Taig also uses a great CNC ready mill and lathe. You can also select their digital CNC system which uses closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the same issues as the Sherline. They are far too little. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they offer. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The nice thing is that they now use a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The downside with both makes is the absence of major upgrades.
Sherline provides numerous parts and accessories, but not much to make it a much better machine. To begin with, they headstock usages poor quality bearings and the bearings are too little. This suggests the spindle itself requires to be little. A spindle with really little mass implies the lathe or mill the surface quality won’t be as good and subject to vibration issues. For example, they offer lots of lathe accessories, however you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the pass through hole needs to be small since the bearings are little. There is a similar issue with the mill. You can just use ER16 collets and this limits its usage. Of course those in Weiser, Idaho 83672 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Weiser
There are other machine options too. You can also purchase from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other suppliers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Of course the quality isn’t genuine excellent. Numerous wind up either really 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 desire to go with a CNC machine, your best bet is the Centroid Acorn. The software and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or much of the hardware choices in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it uses constant speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the requirement for several years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at best and actually only targeted at amature usage. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. A lot of which are 5 axis machines. The best servos to use 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 a powerful machine. We will also produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill utilizing the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Numerous complain that the little chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On choice is to buy a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you opt for bigger bearings.