[speedtwin69]

Time to step up from my Maxnc10 to the 2019 Cnc ready.
I'll throw my steppers on it and go.
Being they are both .05 pitch no worries.

[BAMCNC.COM]

You will be impressed with the quality for the price, although there are things I would do differently, but that's always a given.

[speedtwin69]

What would you do different?

[BAMCNC.COM]

Everything painted blue I would change or have.. but everything else is above my brain power and is what makes a Taig so great.

[speedtwin69]

I can live with blue for now, when I convert it to ground ball screws ,I will powder coat
What I can get away with at work.

[BAMCNC.COM]

I didn't mean the color sorry, I ment the actual parts, blue just happens to be the color of them.

[awerby]

The next thing to do is toss the MaxNC drive box and replace it with a Gecko G540. The MaxNC10 motors are a little weak, but they should work for a while, anyway. Lots of people talk about converting Taigs to ballscrews, but hardly anyone ever really does it. But if you do go with them, you'll want to add a counterweight or gas springs to keep the head from dropping when you turn off the power.

Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com

[speedtwin69]

I already been using the gecko 540 for a few years now.
Have big steppers on the Maxnc, has enough grunt to twist off the 1/4-20 lead screws.
I never could get the Maxnc driver to work very well so I bypassed after a few days
of tinkering with it.
I got my 540 from deepgroove1 and it was plug and play, never had a instance of problems . I have the motors tuned where I get smooth rapids of 66 imp with no
Lost steps . I figure with the Taig , I should be able to bump it up a little more.

[speedtwin69]

Have decided to go with Steinmeyer C0 class ball screws ,zero backlash double nut.
I figure about 1K per axis , I'm going to tackle 1 axis at a time a few months apart.
I'm going to cad my Taig lead screws and submit drawings to them, they said I could see them in a three week lead time.

[Jeff-Birt]

Why do you think you need ball screws?

[BAMCNC.COM]

I agree, Taig leadscrews are lapped and you can get down to so little backlash that ball screws wouldn't help that much, but I guess it depends on what type of work your going to be doing.

[speedtwin69]

Everything else I work with at work has ball screws, I guess I'm spoiled.

[Jeff-Birt]

@speedtwin69 - What I'm getting at is what is the perceived advantage of converting to ball screws. I'm genuinely interested in what folks think the gain will be as it is a large amount of money to spend.

I have suspected that 'ball screws' are a term kind of like 'billet' is to car guys. A billet just being a chunk of raw metal. By that I mean you see all sorts of car accessories advertised as 'billet' from shifter knobs to engine parts. Being machined from a solid chunk metal does not really mean it is better suited for the task it is really just a popular buzzword. I wonder if ball-screws are sort of the same thing in the hobbyist world. Don't get me wrong if having ball-screws makes you happy than I'm happy for you. I am just curious what perceived advantages run through other folks minds.

With the adjustable lead nuts on a Taig you can adjust the backlash to less than 0.001" easily. They don't state a linearity/foot rating but a typical lead screw would be in the 0.005"~0.009" per foot. A typical ball screw will be perhaps 0.002"~0.004"/foot. Over a foot the difference of a few thousandths of an inch is likely not a big advantage on small machine (for most applications.) Tool flex, tool wear, material properties etc will introduce more error in the final part.

A good quality ground ball screw will have less friction and need less maintenance over its life. It may have less backlash as well (remember there is no such thing as 'zero' backlash.) For an industrial machine that runs many, many hours every day for years ball screws offer a serious advantage in reduction of maintenance (they wear less and won't need adjusted as often as a lead screw.)

For a smaller machine that gets used far less and can be easily adjust every hundred or two hours I'm not sure there is a big advantage to use ball screws. There is probably no disadvantage either other than cost as I said it is just curiosity on my part.

[BAMCNC.COM]

Well said!

[Dolphin USA]

You'll be happy with the Taig. The reputation is good for good reason.

[speedtwin69]

I received the lil Taig today and hooked it to my 540 drive and it is smoother than butter.
I cut an 1.25 pocket .5 deep at 8imp feed and plunged at 5imp. Set over of 80 percent.
I took .1 per cut , it took about 10 minutes , it measured 1.249 by .25 deep.
I put my on 1/2 hp dc servo spindle motor on it and is very quite at 14000 rpm's.
I concede that lead screws it has are adequate,and 8 will run them for a good long time.
But eventually I'm going to a ball screws for the long haul. They are nicer for bearing fits that I do a lot of for small parts.
It really is an awesome mill, I am considering remaking a new Z axis column on my HAAS VF3 at work and mounting the whole machine to a .75 thick plate and gusseting the Z
To it all. I will try cutting some 17-4 PH on it tomorrow in small cuts working my way up in increments.

[fretsman]

I put my on 1/2 hp dc servo spindle motor on it and is very quite at 14000 rpm's.

Congrats, and good to hear it's working out for you.

I'd interested in knowing more about your spindle motor, care to share some pics and details on what it is and how it's set up?

Thanks,
Dave

[BAMCNC.COM]

Ditto, also I'm interested in your column idea.

[speedtwin69]

The spindle motor is off eBay. It is basically a dc servo motor with built in encoder and tachometer.lighter than stock motor, 200 watts variable speed.
I think it was $150' sorry no pics yet, I ipadn this forum.
5500 rpm