[acondit]

This part of the project originally began as a bearing support modification to the crossfeed leadscrew. I was never happy with that part of the design. It had a bronze bushing in the back end and a single ball bearing in the front end. For a manual screw it would have probably worked fine, but it always nagged at me. I had thought about several different schemes for mounting double bearings at the front end to take out any backlash there. One day I decided to just do it.

I turned off most of the pocket for the front bearing. Then I cut another piece of aluminum and cut the remainder of the back bearing pocket in it. Then I flipped it around and cut the front bearing pocket in the opposite side. So the back bearing aligns the front part of the bracket with the rest of the body and together they support the screw radially and act as angular contact bearings.

Next step was to design a method of driving the crossfeed with a stepper.

Alan