[LeeWay]

This is the style of CRP's drives and rack I used on my plasma cutter.
I got it going in March 2013. The gears and racks still show no real signs of wear. I do keep them greased up though. The racks came from McMaster Carr. I had already bought those well before I ordered anything from CRP's. I think good lubrication is the key to longevity on gears and racks. That and not to over tension them. My gantry is pretty heavy. It is 5' long. Some cuts I make at 220 IPM. The pinions have never jumped a rack tooth. I only have mild tension applied.
I have had to replace one roller skate bearing in that time, but other than that, the drive line has been flawless.

[ecurb5]

This is the style of CRP's drives and rack I used on my plasma cutter.
I got it going in March 2013. The gears and racks still show no real signs of wear. I do keep them greased up though. The racks came from McMaster Carr. I had already bought those well before I ordered anything from CRP's. I think good lubrication is the key to longevity on gears and racks. That and not to over tension them. My gantry is pretty heavy. It is 5' long. Some cuts I make at 220 IPM. The pinions have never jumped a rack tooth. I only have mild tension applied.
I have had to replace one roller skate bearing in that time, but other than that, the drive line has been flawless.

Nice looking machine.

Well, for plasma cutting, the little bit of "noise" (produced by the slight angle misalignment between the rack amd pinion gear as pointed out by Ahren) introduced in the cut I'm guessing is never an issue, let alone even noticeable. But when doing 3D relief cuts in wood, that "noise" results in major quality time spent with a bit of sandpaper.... (see pic in post at the start of the thread).

Since I enjoy a little bit of metal work, I opted to make the upgrade to my existing racks instead of spending ~8x the cost to buy the pro racks from Ahren...

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