That is a nice setup. I'm sitting here trying to wrap my brain around the counter weights and the pulleys on the X-Y. The Z axis makes sense to me. It will take me some time to figure out that X-Y system though
1/10,000 repeatable sounds awesome, heck I'd have to get better calipers, my digit-cal will read 10ths..5 at a time heh.
How much travel do you estimate between tightening the preload on the nuts? I was thinking about calling Kerk motion products to see how much they wanted for some of their screws/nuts, but they probably want almost as much as ballscrews would cost. They are able to cu$tom cast some kind of low friction anti backlash nuts with low/no maintance.
http://www.kerkmotion.com/products/l...lead-screw.asp
Looks like you have made some other upgrades also. Is that a 1/3 HP motor I see powering the spindle? I like the 1"? standoff on the Z axis carriage also. Are those direct drive brushless servos? If you have the 2nd gen controller I bet you can achieve some nice rapids. 60+ IPM? For some reason I'm thinking faster rapids would wear my nuts down faster, but 60 IPM would be nice I think. I am maxed out at about 40 IPM with these belt drive reducers. They take my servos 3K RPM down to about 1K.
Thank you for sharing, I think I will try something like that before looking to replace/upgrade and of my screws. After all my Taig is brand new (and I just dropped $1300.00 on A RhinoCAD/CAM bundle). I think the next upgrade will be some nice 4 amp servos maybe. Are you still using the stock torque couplings? That is something else on the short list. The fact that the mill came with 4 extra of the little plastic tubes has me expecting those to be the first to go. Nick Carter also mentioned he had upgraded his if I remember correctly.
Thanks again for sharing the nice setup. Chuck.