Thanks for the tips, those machines you build look amazing. I have had a good look through newwayairbearings.com, and its answered some of my questions. The puck type bearings look like the best way to go.
I have a few projects which would benefit from air bearings, but at this stage im just looking to make a small prototype to get some experience with such bearings. I work with robots that are used to simulate virtual objects, so you can reach out and pick up computer generated objects, feeling their mass and inertia. One of the problems is the friction losses in the robots bearings can be felt by the user, air bearings would greatly improve the experience. A far less practical use would be fitting them to my milling machine project, but it might be worth doing 'just because you can'. |