Homemade Linear Slide System

[midiguy732]

Yep!

Originally, I wanted to a "Y" configuration for bearings, somewhat similar to your two thumbnails, except upside down. It didn't dawn on me how to easily make it, so I went with four bearings to make things a little simpler to "manufacturer".

Now that my machine is almost ready to start cutting, I can certainly revisit such things as the machine could make replacement parts!

[Christo1]

After looking at the design for these homemade linear bearing slides which looked to be nearly flawless, I wanted to add a suggestion for those who liked the design but were worried about the rail flexing with the use of this particular design. A couple of options crossed my mind here. One would be to secure the rail to an upsidedown mounted Piece of "T" steel or thin "U" steel that would be the length of the machine with a weld(assuming this material will take a weld and that there is a main support directly beneath the rail). The other option that came to mind was to tap the rail every 12 inches or so and run a few pins(welded) or bolts with steel sleeves or up through the main support of the unit. Welding may be the simpler of the two considering the fact that aligning multiple taps in a cylinder may be difficult for some. There looks to be plenty of clearance on the slides for either option.

[midiguy732]

After many, many hours of using this homemade machine, I have to say that rail-flex really hasn't been an issue, even though during high speed use you can actually see the flex with the naked eye - a little. In fact, the machine isn't perfectly square in the vertical direction either. One corner is higher than the other three by about 1/16" or so.

I've only used this for plasma cutting, as you know the torch shouldn't slide or touch the material being cut. So with the system not being square vertically, the height of the plasma gun varies from 1/16" to 1/8" - well within "spec" of my Miller Spectrum 375 to make fairly clean cuts in whatever I've fed it - assuming the material isn't super thick. 3/8" and less cuts fine, and clean enough for my purposes.

I don't even clamp the metal I'm cutting down. No contact, no point.

For slinging a dremel, or router around, where there would be resistance between the work material and the flex of the unsupported rails would be much higher, and the 1/2" diameter thin-wall tubing I used for the rails wouldn't cut it. And, why I don't do dremel/router work on this machine - I'd have to rebuild it.

[Annirak]

It looks like the links you posted originally are gone. Would you be able to put up some new links?

Thanks