I'm a newbie so I hope that everyone will be gentle.
I want to convert my Jet JMD-18 to CNC for cutting mostly aluminum and nylon/UHMW parts. I do plan to make an occasional part from steel as well.
I have the ability to do all of the design and machining of the necessary parts. I've been working on the design in 3D and thus far it is coming together well.
The OEM screw are trapazoidal 23.5 mm for the X and Y? I was thinking of changing those to 2005 series ball screws. Any opinons about using a smaller ball screw? Since the ball screw is more efficient then I would think that would be ok.
The Z-axis (quill only) I was planning to drive 3:1 since it does not have a lead screw. The Z-axis is 3.5 inch/rev.
My questions:
1) Why am I seeing that many are using 2:1 drive ratios for the X and Y axis? My calculations show that I can get well over 100 in/min with a direclt drive (stepper or servo driven) @ near 1000 rpm. Maybe I cant drive the motor that fast??
2) I am trying not to spend a ton on the lead screws. I've pretty much convinced myself to use ball screws but I have no ideas whether I really need C5 or is the Chinese C7 stuff good enough for my application.
I'm hoping to get several opinions of how to proceed.