Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for White Sulphur Springs, NY 12787
Numerous have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the White Sulphur Springs, NY. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, interest lots of people. There’s just on location to get the at a reasonable rate and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is ideal for the mill. Choosing a 5C is perfect for the lathes. Naturally, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a benefit. The availability of tooling for each of these designs is exceptional. For 5C collet sets, you can get excellent quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts come in a range of designs from the factory. Generally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very little. Sherline also uses WW collet sets for very small work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers use the WW collets. Many choose ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle travel through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, most actually do not care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It offers the most versatility and many tool choices. You can discover lots of evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The likewise been available in CNC, manual and CNC ready versions. Recently, they have actually added ballscrew variations for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the internet if you want a review or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near White Sulphur Springs.
Taig likewise provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In fact, you can find a lot of videos and articles referring to Taig vs Sherline. The Taig products provide much more stiff ways and generally more “sturdy” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like a totally different mill or lathe. Taig also offers a good CNC ready mill and lathe. You can also select their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the exact same problems as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they use. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The good thing is that they now offer 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 start with, they headstock usages bad quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This means the spindle itself needs to be small. A spindle with very little mass implies the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as great and subject to vibration problems. For example, they use lots of lathe devices, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole needs to be little since the bearings are small. There is a comparable concern with the mill. You can just utilize ER16 collets and this limits its usage. Of course those in White Sulphur Springs, New York 12787 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in White Sulphur Springs
There are other machine choices too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other suppliers that use Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t genuine good. Numerous wind up either really disappointed or doing a lot of modifications to get the machine to do what they desire. Outstanding 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 application and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or a lot of the hardware choices in the market. You can do rigid tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers continuous speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for many years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at best and really only focused on amature usage. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. Much 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 brand names. Integrate that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have an effective machine. We will likewise produce evaluations of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill utilizing the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Numerous grumble that the little chucks will not hold steel for cutting. The part will simply fall out. On alternative 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 go with bigger bearings.