Wondering what guidance there is for the plate thickness when mounting a 16mm OD 400mm L ball screw for plates of both aluminum and steel? Search failed me but it appears most people are using something at least 1/2" or 12mm and most are using something closer to3/4"
I have some .25" a36 steel plate onhand but it doesn't seem like it will be rigid enough.
Here are a few simulations I ran. i used a 12mm steel rod for a 16mm ball screw as a guess. I modeled it with both ends fully supported and with a single end supported. Worse case was with an unsupported end and .25" aluminum plate with .09mm deflection. best case was with both ends fully supported and steel plate: .002mm. Please let me know if this modeling is flawed in trying to understand how the plate impacts the rigidity of the ball screw mounting.
Details below
First is all steel with fixed end supports.
Next is alu plate and fixed supports
Then I moved the supports to see what the top floating out in space does: Here is .25 steel plate