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IndustryArena Forum > MetalWorking Machines > Benchtop Machines > Recent Purchase - Sherline 5400
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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Posts
    0

    Recent Purchase - Sherline 5400

    Hi all, after quite a bit of research and a little luck I am now the proud winner of an eBay auction for a Sherline 5400 (http://cgi.ebay.com/Sherline-CNC-mil...QQcmdZViewItem). I am very excited to get my hands on it an start fiddling around. I have had limited hands on experience with CAM but took a class in college where I learned gcode and used surfcam to machine some simple aluminum parts. I bought this mill to primarily make plastic prototypes for consumer electronics but would also like to experiment with cutting aluminum (or soft steels?) such as watch cases or the like.

    I hope to be a very active member of this community so I figured I would introduce myself to everyone and ask around if anyone had any suggestions for tooling or upgrades I might want to make to my sherline in order to make some of the aforementioned parts. I am also interested in hearing from the experts what the preferred method of coding and running your sherline. For design I use Solidworks. Thanks for looking!

    Regards,
    Drew

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Posts
    2580

    Looks pretty good man...

    While I am not into the very small mills that deal looks like a good one. I know a lot of guys use them to make wax ring blanks and jewelry as well as all manner of remote control car/boat/plane parts. It even has the rotary unit that you could I assume eventually turn into a fourth axis. That is also including some tooling and shipping and the computer/controller so that is a very good deal I would think. Please post pics when you get it an enjoy!!! peace

    Pete

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Posts
    5728

    You probably want to convert

    that rotary table to CNC; you've got the manual one there. You'll also want to support it upright (in a vertical position, so the axis is parallel to the X axis). A 4-jaw chuck would be useful for holding material, and the right-angle adjustable tailstock would support the far end of it.

    If you've got SurfCAM, that should work fine to convert your Solidworks models into G-code you can run on your system. If not, you might look at some of the less expensive CAM software packages out there. Mecsoft makes a version of VisualMill especially for Solidworks, but as long as you're able to work from STL files, there are numerous alternatives you can check out. DeskProto is one of the easier ones to use, and it supports the 4th axis. You can download a demo from DeskProto offers rapid prototyping using an affordable cnc milling machine: DeskProto is 3D cam software for model making. that will be fully functional for a month - so don't install it until the mill is up and running.

    Andrew Werby
    ComputerSculpture.com — Home Page for Discount Hardware & Software

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