Linear components for new machine

[307startup]

Hello...

I am new here, but I have been visiting the site for a couple of months now.

I am building a new machine and need some input.

I am looking for fully matched linear components from a single manufacturer. Rails, ballscrews, the whole shooting match.

I would prefer American made, if at all possible. Quality and performance are most important to me...costs are not terribly important so long as I don't have to mortgage my house to purchase them.

I would like to use ground ballscrews...around 10 pitch...and ceramic bearings would be a plus.

Stainless materials would be most preferable as this machine will be doing some medical machining.

I'm afraid that I only know as much about machines as the ones I have seen in person during repair work (Haas, Mazak, Bridgeport Torq-Cut) etc. I am a machinist by trade and have had my fair share of fixing machines that have been crashed or abused.

So...round rails or square...I am sure that my questions are terribly vague, but I'm looking for a pre-engineered system...not something that I can make work myself.

My goal is to produce one machine, put it to work and see if there is a market for it.

Thanks for any help,

Trent

[307startup]

anybody? any hints? any help would be appreciated...

[Mat-C]

Ok... do you want one manufacturer, or will one supplier do?
Really hard to know where to start without knowing what the machine does.

I doubt matching rails to ballscrews matters overly, they aren't usually in the same part of the machine so they don't have to match up I wouldn't think (unless you get one of those posh integrated slide/ballscrew assemblies).

American made: I wouldn't know, I'm in Europe, but you guys seem to have some very good high end suppliers for those with deep wallets.

Round/square rails: depends on accuracy, stiffness, machine type, supports, etc....

Pre-engineered system: um. You can get nice slides and assemblies made up, but not sure what you mean by this.

This lovely link has a lot (an awful lot) of great info if you've not already read it:
http://www.mech.utah.edu/~bamberg/re...e%20Design.pdf

[smarbaga]

hello
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My goal is to produce one machine, put it to work and see if there is a market for it.

Thanks for any help,
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i don't want to rain on your party but:
the above is true in your dreams and/or on tv.
get the work, sell the product, then produce it.
know the competition better than they know themselves.
find out what the area needs are and cost/ profit margine.
this is if you plan on having a unit put a crust of bread on the table.
i think you are in the right area, ( medical )
one could have all the latest and greatest equipment sitting there, the only person that will be knocking on your door will be the bill collectors.
marketing, sales, advertisement, door to door, word of mouth, smoothtalking, research.
this is where the hard work is, the product is secondary ( sorry to say)
if someone does knocks on your door, there bottom lines will be:
how long? how much? what guarentee? i'll get back to you later , (maybe).
just my 2 cents.

[Jason Ross]

I would recommend the book Precision Machine Design by Alex Slocum. There is no reason to use ceramic bearings unless you have a high speed spindle. For the linear components it would not help. Anorad makes an expensive, extremely high end stage, Nutec Components www.nuteccomponents.com makes a very good, high accuracy stage, Parker and Danahermotion manufacture a decent industrial stage, Technol Isel makes a very low cost CNC package, they are all US based manufacturers except for Techno but they assemble in New York

[Mat-C]

If you have an original product that needs a special machine, it makes sense to go ahead. Otherwise can you make it, either slowly or expensively, on existing machines? Cheaper to subsidise and make a loss on a few widgets than building a whole machine.

As smarbaga suggests, knowing your market before investing too much is a good plan.

I'd worry about the whole medical buying/advertising/selling game.
Could be that people largely buy from trusted suppliers. If you have a ready market, then great... especially if your machine has other uses if that one doesn't work out.

Good luck!

[RICHARD ZASTROW]

WYLD If you will accept single supplier, SKF builds spindles in the US, ballscrews/nuts in France, bearings all over, linear ways in Germany etc., etc..
Danaher Motion can do much the same including elect.