The Big Machining Centers

[LeeWay]

Good eye, Geof.
I immediately caught that. I mentioned a similar sort of outriggers in Jason's VMC build. I thought they could really be useful on extended length axes like this. I was thinking more along the lines of a stack of rollers bearings rather than linear rails, but they would work too. No real need for those outriggers to be massive. They are more to just stabilize an off balanced load.

I am working on a couple vibratory finishers right now, but after that, I want to do a fixed gantry or bridge mill. On the table, I would use beefy linear rails under the center and then just outriggers toward the outer edges. That should make for a solid table.

Thanks for posting the guts of these large machines. It will really help when we design our smaller machines. Some of these actually resemble some of the machines I have seen here already. Arie's comes to mind, but there are others.

[veteq]

The shoes that are there are maybe for damping off vibration,
i was in a big machine shop last week that is going to mill the parts off my benchtop and i talked to the boss over there. He was talking that the big machines use some sort of extra shoe that is used for ibration.

regards,

Roy B.

[LeeWay]

Yeah. If you think about it, if these were left unsupported out toward the end, it might act like a tuning fork with the right resonance and start vibrating and induce that right back into the cut. That ain't desirable.

[svenakela]

I'm pretty sure there are needle rollers in the outriggers.

[steveg]

Sven is correct, do a google image search for
INA LINEAR ROLLER BEARING
its the first image that pops up, for that application
the roller bearing is mounted to a tapered carrier
so that you can fine adjust the height and angle of
the end of the saddle