Also for rack & pinion you can use a toothed belt reduction. Cheap and no backlash.
A strong stepper can even direct drive a small pinion on rack. In that case microstepping can be used to increase resolution. Personally I dislike acme screws because of their low efficiency. Ballscrews are much better but still limit max. speed due to whipping. I'd choose a courser pitch for plasma and light wood cutting. As CNCaddict said, 160 ipm is fast for cutting but not really fast for positioning. |