[aarggh]

You don't seem to see a great deal of positive experiences buying Chinese parts listed on the zone, and there can be plenty of reasons why, but I thought I'd share a few i've had with a particular seller on Ebay, by the name of econvenience1986.

I've bought rails and screws of other vendors, and have been left with a nasty taste in my mouth. One prime example is after buying screws and rails off linearmotionbearings2008, they arrived very poorly packed and loose in the flimsy wrapping. After complaining about the packaging, as I was ordering a pair of 1650mm and 2750mm drivescrews, I was assured the packing will be "premium"! Needless to say the screws not only arrived with a bend, but also quite damaged as they were protected by the minutest bubble wrap before being wrapped in a single layer of tar paper. Somehow, they actually managed to wrap a single layer of bubble wrap (not overlapped!) along the length of each screw, and use tiny bits of tape along the seam! The effort in this masterpiece of miniscule wrapping must have been immense, whereas most people would have simply wrapped it a few times around to be safe, especially travelling internationally.

As a consequence, the screws of course were covered with little damage marks from being loosely packed, with no real protection. Giving the seller the benefit of the doubt to resolve it left me outside the paypal deadline, so with roughly $2k spent on 4 screws, I've been fairly despondent over them over the last couple of years, and resolved to never buy from LMB again. I know others have bought and been happy, that's great, I'm just relating my experience.

I came across another seller a while back, and have now purchased several lots of rails and screws. And I couldn't be happier with the packing, and especially the pricing. One of the lots I bought was 4 x 2750mm SBR20 rails and 8 bearings, and 4 x 1625mm SBR25 rails and bearings. The price including shipping to OZ came to under $1k, and was delivered within 4 days!

I didn't think to photo the earlier lot as I hadn't planned on posting this, but after seeing again how well the current lot delivered today was packed, I thought it would be of interest to others, especially those of us in OZ who routinely get screwed on pricing. The prior lots have all been packed the same, tight and well protected way. I have a couple of other orders coming soon and will post photos of them as well.

Attached are pics of the screws from LMB, still in their original bubble wrap, what there is of it anyway, an absolutely disgusting way to send drivescrews in my opinion. Especially for the amount paid, and after being assured the previous bad packing wouldn't be repeated.

The other photos are of the rails recieved from econvenience1986, and as you can see were very tighly packed, with heaps of wrappuing and sticky tape, and also with the rails facing inside towards each other, so there is no banging around, or damage from loose packing like the LMB one.

I've been dealing with Leo, who has been very, very helpful, and more than accomodating on pricing. I'm that confident I'm not buying them through Ebay, but directly instead.

If anyone wants more info or pics i'm happy to help.

cheers,
Ian

[miner19562003]

Nice to get some feedback on chinese sellers on ebay,especially on a package that totals $1000 or so.What's your experience on the quality and precision of these ballscrews and linear rails.Have you built a machine wth these and if so what sort of tolerances can you achieve? Can the ballnuts be ordered with preload?.I'm asking all these questions because I'm planning a future build for a router type configuration,but one that will handle aluminum,so I'll be looking at a pretty heavy duty build.Trying to source ballscrews and linear rails at a reasonable price is a real task.Do you have any experience with the watercooled spindles?,or the electronics packages,steppers,drivers power supplyetc.Any input from yourself or anyone else would be appreciated.Thanks

[aarggh]

Sorry for the tardy response, the last week has been somewhat busy. I've received several more packs from Leo and the quality has all been the same, the other packs didn't arrive as well packaged as the first one, which was just the best item I have EVER received! But they were still well protected, and tightly wrapped so they couldn't jostle around. I did though let him know the packing for the drivescrews could have been done better. But having said that, the worst packing was still far superior to anything I've received from LMB in the past.

Quality wise, they are no different at all to the ones from LMB, and when I measured several to check machining tolerances, they were all within spec, the resolution of my vernier was probably not as small as any difference.

Overall, i'm really happy, very, very good value, very fast delivery which helps stop them bashing around for days on end while in transit. I'd recommend emailing Leo directly for good pricing, and specify the packing is crucial.

With your spindle question, I have several, they are all water cooled, and I couldn't be happier. They absolutely beat hands down using any standard router on a machine. Powerful, efficient, super quiet! Just awesome to use. I do prefer water cooled as I don't like the idea of fan cooled ones which then require really good dust extraction to avoid clogging up, and also blow dust around more, but some do, it's a personal choice. For me though, water cooled is so much more practical. I just use undiluted good quality radiator coolant in an air tight and non-see through container to limit any "funny growths".

For drivers, steppers, it depends on what you want to build and cut. The gecko G540 is a fantastic all round driver with a built in BOB, and you can team it up with 380-420oz/in steppers that will provide max speed and torque for it's class. As a comparison, the largest stepper size on my 6090 is 380oz/in, and uses the venerable PM542's as drivers, as the inductance of these steppers is too high for the G540, so it's horses for courses. May not sound it, but 380oz/in really is quite a lot of power for most machines, and a G540 just makes it all very easy.

Hope this helps!

cheers,
Ian

[victorofga]

i also purchased from linearmotion.. the packaging is true..

screws i think ok.. theres no way i could check with simple caliper their tolerance.. my opinion, they must be in a tolerance.. the technology you can make a rolled ballscrew is not simple at all..
it also require very homogen material.. so personally me im confident about they are in tolerance..
the endblocks i got with them... i dont want to comment :-) dont even the bearings in the blocks..

overall im ok with this purchase.. even blocks are not what i wanted really still a good deal..i purchased 25 mm dia screws , with 10 lead.. also the 1605 .. for a smaller setup i purchased 4 mm lead 12mm dia for gantry and Z

they are ok..
also purchased rails..

unfortunately ran out of money.. when next time i had money i purchased a whole machine :-)

after i can add more space for my building, i return to this project..

overall, i think if they would put into a pvc pipe those screws and rails, that would save a lot complaint..not really clear why they sending across on the earth in a thin paper..
or between two board at least..

one more remark here, what is under 2000 dollar merchandise, actually ups and similar carriers passing trough on custom.. and i think most package opened by custom for security reason..

before it leaves china, the packages enclosed where present us officials..

best regard
viktor

[dmalicky]

Thanks for this thread. Does anyone have good/bad packing experiences for ballscrews through any of these ebay vendors: jamesbondtb, socoolmart, yibiaoxin1982, 365bestseller, solar.jean, momo198330131? I'd rather not have to straighten the screws.

[dj_nexxus]

AARGGH - do you have an email for Leo or do you purchase it via amazon?