Screw Drive garage door opener

[Kevin McFarl]

Hello all i am new to cnc
I am just starting to get ideas of building one of my own
I was just wondering if a srew drive type garage door openner would work in place of a stepper or a servo motor.

You have almost every thing you need to start with motor,screw,carage nut ect.

Any info would be helpful

Thanks all
Kevin

[Alan T.]

It would not be very accurate. Ton's of backlash. You would also have to change the motor drive.

[Cliff_J]

Kevin, I've got one and it also binds pretty easy if not lubed up, not a great attribute on top of the loose tolerances everywhere and flimsy construction. To add an encoder to use as a servo drive seems a big waste.

You'd be better off with a DIY bearing like found all over on this site and even an allthread screw.

[Kevin McFarl]

Thank alot.
I am new to all of this so i dont know what i am doing yet.
I have some more ideas i am thinking about.

[lurch]

Keep the ideas coming, bad ideas should get shot full of holes quickly here(lots of experience to draw from). Learning from others mistakes is really easier than making your own. The ideas that make it through the culling process should be good, solid ideas. You may even come up with some out of the box new ideas, that change the way we do this CNC thing.....!

[High Seas]

I'll let you all know in about 6 months or more. Got a couple screwdrives from a few different sources. I like the setup possibilities - there are some differences - I note the rail from Craftsman (Sears) has some backlash - but the Genie seems to have very little "slop". They have differen pitch (TPI) and a different setup for the drive. There may be some backlash- but should make a pretty nice foam cutting rig - gotta cut some wings when I return from downunder! Reports when I get to it. Cheers - Jim

[Physisist777]

you guys are ridiculous....I bought a craftsman screw assembly off ebay and tested it myself. with a new plastic shuttle and a clean screw, I measured no discernible backlash or loss in precision. I used a 6" caliper to measure relative to a stationary object. for a hobby cnc, I think accuracy beyond that of my caliper, over a range of 6 inches is more than sufficient. the only caveat is the shuttle must maintain tight contact with the screw to insure accuracy. but the cool thing is that the track does just that, as well as providing a 3 sided inclosure and plastic bushings to eliminate lateral "wobble".

the one issue I see is there is low efficiency due to the plastic bushings. but accuracy is defiantly not an issue with these things; especially considering the inherent inaccuracies of the other components (skate bearings, etc)

so guys, if someone comes up with an innovative idea, don't bust there balls until you have personally verified your assumptions

[jdell42]

Originally Posted by Physisist777 you guys are ridiculous....I bought a craftsman screw assembly off ebay and tested it myself. with a new plastic shuttle and a clean screw, I measured no discernible backlash or loss in precision. I used a 6" caliper to measure relative to a stationary object. for a hobby cnc, I think accuracy beyond that of my caliper, over a range of 6 inches is more than sufficient. the only caveat is the shuttle must maintain tight contact with the screw to insure accuracy. but the cool thing is that the track does just that, as well as providing a 3 sided inclosure and plastic bushings to eliminate lateral "wobble". the one issue I see is there is low efficiency due to the plastic bushings. but accuracy is defiantly not an issue with these things; especially considering the inherent inaccuracies of the other components (skate bearings, etc) so guys, if someone comes up with an innovative idea, don't bust there balls until you have personally verified your assumptions

How did you test it? Assume you had some type of coupler to connect it to a stepper or servo?

[NC Cams]

IMagine if you will a screw drive that ran a garage door up and down for 10-15 years. Most people never lube them, never clean them, As long as the door goes u/d, they simply push the button.

Localized wear is/would/could be a problem in the screw. SInce it is a relay drive, one could hardly easily turn it into a fast acting, bidriectional mosfet driven system. Maybe SCR's or TRIACS but not an easy H bridge like most DC servo amps use.

Doable? Yes. Qualified doable? defintiely.

OVersimplification is the root cause of too may "all you gotta do is" projects

Try using the search engine via 'garage door opener'.

I know this has been thrashed about in the past year or so and done so successfully. Maybe it is time to do it again - door openers go bad in winter and it is the time of the season for this topic to resurrect itself.

[Physisist777]

I am only using the screw from the garage door opener as a supplement for more expensive acme screw. (paid $30 for 9 feet) The track/screw comes in 3 foot sections.

I am directly coupling the 3' screw to a 425 oz/in stepper and driving at microstep precision. Therefore I tested the precision by driving a stepper a given number of steps and comparing the distance traveled to the calculated distance traveled. (the screw I have is 6 tpi) and repeat...

well, I will be finished with my rig in a few weeks; so I will let you guys know how the garage door screws works out. its a 3x3x12 burn table/engraver/mill

[FandZ]

Does anyone have a link to a picture of the garage door opener you are talking about. I just don't have a clue what you guys are talking about but would like to know.

[NC Cams]

Google as follows "screw drive door opener". THousands of hits emerge