Now that I have a functional ballscrew, its time to get it up and running- installed, as it were. The problem is, in my efforts to create wisdom through utter idiocy, I now have a screw with a moment of inertia that would make even a turbo diesel flywheel envious. I figured I could overcome this by using a larger stepping motor for this axis, and to some extent this is true, but after doing some quick calculations with Mariss, found the resulting force from the system to be far in excess of requirements. So the solution, it seems, is to set up the screw as a rotating nut system. Now I can have even more needless complexity! Yes! So, the question is: How do I accomplish this endeavor?
Or,should I go with the far more boring and monetarily wasteful option, adopting a toothed belt, or rack and pinion? I really don't think either of these will offer the accuracy I need. I am working with Aluminum, and require an absolute positional accuracy over the full completion of a job of no less than +/- .001 inch. Now, my needs are decidedly 2D, but as the pieces assemble into self aligning chassis systems, comprised of as many as 20 separate parts, any dimensional differences make themselves known VERY quickly. On top of all that, there are very few visible fasteners, and the majority of components are cosmetically sensitive.