The Ball nut reloading cost about $150 or so - I don't recall. This was done by Roberts Ball Screw in Dansville Michigan.
The gibb adjustment was performed by me and I spent a couple of days getting it figured out and then adjusted to move without drag or slop when I turned the handles. This takes time and patience as you have to check, recheck and readjust over and over to get it as slop free as I was looking to get.
The ball screw bearings I used to replace the OEM 11060203 bearings were the real killers. What my bearings cost is not a "real" number. I had connections and got the bearings surplus. Why? THe OEM bearings are lame but adequate for a glorified drill press. For true ball screw work, they aren't even close - they are not rigid and they have too much slop.
Because I was looking to go to the extreme, I used TRUE machine tool grade preloaded ball screw bearings. The "feel" and accuracy are UNBELIEVEABLE.
The posted price of the bearings I used was something like $830/set and 2 sets are needed - 1 each of X and Y. You could use something a bit less costly and get similiar performance. I gave the alternative P/N's in my Extrak postings that can be found via this site's search enginer.
7204A5TYDUHP4's by NSK would probably do almost as well as the ones I used and the 7204's should be more affordable - even these would be FAR superior to the OEM bearings for both X and Y.
If you're doing 3 D milling with the V2XT, the 11770118 bearing that supports the Z axis should be replaced with a 7014A5TYDUMP4 as this is far superior in accuracy, preload and rigidity than the OEM bearing. Thi bearing is a true ABEC 7 machine tool bearing - the OEM is a modified set of 6014's selectively picked to obtain ABEC 3 runout specs. YOU can change the P4 to a P5 and use an ABEC 5 instead. These might be a bit cheaper.
You will have to make up a small spacer to compensate for a width difference between the 7204's and the 11060203's on the X and Y axis - laser cut steel shims or preloading wave washers from McMaster Carr would suffice.
If you have a BMDC, you may/will probably need a servo tune to really get the thing to really shine, especially in cutting ROUND circles. Brian at BPT Machine in Carol Stream Illinois (630-784-9942) did mine. I think I paid time and materials for the service call but don't recall anymore.
If Bridgeport had taken this sort of care and attention to detail when they built the V2XT, Haas whould still have a competitor for the TM1 at a fraction of the cost. Hardinge could do so as well if they still had the BMDC and were interested in selling XT's instead of just the Traditional mill but I suspect they don't care that much anymore.
Cost wise, the tune up I did it was far less than a TM-1 Haas and the machine now matches that in accuracy - I already had the mill and the knowledge about "how to do" the mods came from my experience as a machine tool bearing engineer. The cost was worth it as the thing is deadly accurate and a true joy to operate anymore.
Better yet, when you do something with the machine that any number of people say "can't be done", the benefit is priceless.  |