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Sir,
I suppose it's a bit late, but I would not use ballscrews to drive a plasma or oxyfuel machine; the environment is just too dirty. Rack and pinion are a LOT more tolerant of the dirt.
Jack C.
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New guy here, been lurking around for some time now, finally registered. I've just started my CNC retrofit on a Koike IK1500G tracer.......well, whats left of it.
I've cut it down to a gantry style table, and removed all the tracer stuff (all for sale BTW), and took out the ballast weight in the gantry as well. I've been in contact with Tom at CandCNC, looks like I'm going to use him for all my CNC stuff, he seems to get good feedback on here and has been real helpfull.
Its a 5x10 table, that I'm setting up to cut 4x8, after alot of thought and even more reading I decided to change the friction drive over to ball screw drives on both axis with a dual drive gantry.
I ordered my ballscrews yesterday off of Ebay (linearmotion2008, there are a couple threads floating around here that gave his products good feedback, so I took a chance). I bought one 2005 and two 2505's cut to length and machined. I hope I'm not going to regret using ballscrews for the gantry drive, anyone else running them?
I'm trying to figure out how I want to mount my servo's, I've seen a few combined servo mount/bearing block that look really nice and would make for a clean and easy install, but they are either in Europe or not available without a screw assembly. Anyone have any sources for a nice mount? I attached a pic for reference.
I'll post up pics as I go and feel free to speak up if you see I'm about to make any mistakes......I'm a newbie!
Sir,
I suppose it's a bit late, but I would not use ballscrews to drive a plasma or oxyfuel machine; the environment is just too dirty. Rack and pinion are a LOT more tolerant of the dirt.
Jack C.
Actually.....ballscews have been used successfully on a variety of (commercially built) mechanized plasma cutting machines for over 20 years. They work quite well on small machines with less than about 6 feet of travel......longer travel is easier to build with rack and pinion drives.
One of the nice things about ballscew drives is that with the right pitch and right motors....they can be direct coupled to the motor shaft.....no gear or belt reduction necessary.
The most recent trend on high precision plasma machines for use with high definition class plasma is with helical rack and pinion gears...along with planetary low backlash gearboxes. This allows for mechanically tight drives as well as the ability for long width and lengths. I have seen a few machines in shipyards that are over 40' in width and over 300' in length to handle large plates...as well as extremely high production rates.
Jim Colt Hypertherm
I have thought about the problem with contaminants on the ballscrew, I'm going to brake up some sheetmetal to cover them up to help keep them clean.
Hey Jim, do you work for Hypertherm? If so I have questions.....I'll PM ya.
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