Sherline & Taig Lathe & Mill Upgrades, Reviews for Yabucoa, PR 00767
Many have an interest in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the Yabucoa, PR. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract many people. There’s just 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. Naturally, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is also a reward. 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 come in a range of models from the factory. Normally ER16 and MT1. Both of which are really small. Sherline likewise provides WW collet sets for very tiny work. Generally watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. Most choose ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a larger spindle pass through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, the majority of really 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 versatility and lots of tool choices. You can find numerous reviews 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, manual and CNC ready versions. Recently, they have 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 Yabucoa.
Taig also uses lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines main competition. In fact, you can find a great deal of videos and posts describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items use far more rigid methods and generally more “heavy duty” in general. The Taig motors are quite weak, just like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine seem like a totally different mill or lathe. Taig likewise offers a nice CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can likewise go with their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software application. The Taig spindles have the same problems as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock model they use. We will do a review of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now use a ballscrew choice for their mill and lathe. Plus, the deal a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both manufactures is the absence of severe upgrades.
Sherline uses many parts and attachments, but very little to make it a much better machine. To begin with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This means the spindle itself needs to be little. A spindle with extremely little mass means the lathe or mill the surface quality will not be as great and subject to vibration issues. For example, they provide numerous 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 small. There is a comparable problem with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this restricts its usage. Of course those in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico 00767 may have different needs.
Video: Taig CNC in Yabucoa
There are other machine choices too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, together with other providers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Naturally the quality isn’t genuine good. Many end up either very dissatisfied or doing a great deal of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Excellent upgrades are ballscrews, updated brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you desire to go with a CNC machine, your best choice 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 many years. Nevertheless, they were clunky at finest and actually just aimed at amature use. Centroid is a well recognized industrial manufacture of mills. A number of which are 5 axis devices. The very 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 an effective machine. We will also produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a better jaw chuck for the lathe? Numerous complain 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 built in. This can open more options for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Particularly if you go with larger bearings.