Hi,

I've got an older Zenbot 2448 and it been good to me, but I've recently discovered some of it shortcomings. I'll work around them for now, but it got me thinking about building my own machine at some point. I've tossed a couple ideas around with a friend who is very CNC knowledgeable, and he has warned about about various components not working well in the dusty woodworking environment. I use a dust enclosure rather than trying to capture it as I'm cutting.

In particular, he's warned me about ball screws and linear rails, for the same reason. He says that dust gets into the ball bearings and then they bearings end up sliding vs rolling, and they are are really difficult to clean out. I would be very interested in other's opinions on the best cost effective solutions for rails and for drive systems in the presence of dust. My present machine is a belt drive machine, and there is a lot to like about it, especially speed and resilience in the presence of dust, even though belt stretch is the primary source for lack of rigidity in my current setup. I could see maybe going for another belt drive is the design is right and the belt hefty enough, but I'd really like to gather some opinions, and thought I might find them here.

- Andy