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If You Are Going To Use Shafting, You Must Come Up With A Way To Support The Shafts. You Will Need At Least 40" To 42" Shafts To Get The Travel That You Need, And Unsupported Shafts Will Bow In The Center. At First Thought This Would Not Be That Big Of A Deal For Turning, In Actuality It Is. The Bowing Leads To Vibration, Which Is The Biggest Issue With Turning Shafts. I First Started With 5/8" Precision Linear Shafting With Nyliner Type Bushings. I Was Not Happy With The Bowing So I Scrapped The Idea, And Went With The Thk Rails.
As For The Lead Screw, I Use The 1/2 X 10 With The X And The Y. I Do Not Have The Z Finished Yet, But It Is Actually Just The Carriage Slide From The Taig Lathe I Had, So It Is Actually 1/4 X 20, I Believe. Using Different Lead Screw Pitches For Each Axis Is Not An Issue, Because The Software Lets You Set Up Each Axis Indepentantly.
You Should Download The Manual From Artsoft.com (mach2), And Maybe Even The Software And Play With It. I Learned A Great Deal From Reading Both This Manual And The One For Turbocnc. Both Are Great Software Packages.
If You Are On A Limited Budget, I Would Definately Recommend The Xylotex Board And Mach2 Software. I Have Absolutely No Complaints. If I Had More Budget, I Would Have Gone With Geckos, Bigger Motors And Ball Screws, But My Machine Works Great As It Is.
Royce  |