Hi,
Im about to retire the Red MDF beast and am planning a new Steel build.
Built mainly from 50x50 Tube with 20mm supported rails and 1605 ballscrews with a cutting size of 700x500 and a Z of 150. Materials to be cut will be timber (both soft and hardwoods) and the occasional aluminium item.
What are peoples thoughts on ballscrews for the X axis? With a distance between X rails of around 725mm is it necessary to have 2 ballscrews, or will one in the centre underneath be OK. The distance between bearing blocks on the x axis (for the gantry) is about 200mm. My red MDF beast only has a centre screw and does not suffer from too much racking, but with plans to increase feedrates and cutting of tougher materials, I'm thinking dual may be the way to go.
Dual will allow me to work on longer items by having them slip through a hole in the bed at one end, and will eliminate racking, but there is an extra expense of another screw, motor and mounts. This also uses my "A" axis drive and motor so I will have to use a separate drive when I use that.
Any thoughts are appreciated.
Jon