[SteveS]

This is in DIY since the company that built it (Practical CNC) went bankrupt quite a while ago and I never saw it under power. The machine was purchased in 2007 by a university engineering lab to cut foam for wind tunnel testing prototypes. Only has 20 hours tops on it. I got it in an auction with quite a few spare parts. It came with a WinCNC controller using the old pin number cable, I'm going to use an Acorn Controller.

It is 4' x 4' cutting area with steppers, aluminum extrusion, HIWIN rails and blocks. To get it out of the building I had to slide the gantry off the rails (they had the bearing retainers) and removes the top extrusions with the rails. I can get the rails parallel, but not sure of how to determine proper width position of the rails for blocks interface/load. I don't want a durability issue of being too tight or loose. I checked HIWIN, but couldn't find any guidance.

My question: Is there a dimension from the bearing block reference edge to the linear rail? Or how do I determine a load.

Looking at HIWIN they show the rails and blocks to be mounted horizontal, this machine has them mounted vertical. Obviously not ideal, but is that horrible?

The design is very odd to me from all I have seen, while rack and pinion they only used one stepper for the Y axis and connected the sides with a rod/bearings inside the 30 x30 extrusion to drive a pinion to the rack on the other side. My decision after proving there is life in the machine is to sell it or put second Y stepper using AVID CNC mechanisms.

Steve.

[ger21]

I would think that everything you need can be found in here?
https://www.hiwin.us/wp-content/uplo...Guideway-E.pdf

[SteveS]

Thanks Gerry!
I was at HIWIN looking for this and could not find that document. It ends up that 25.4mm is ideal distance, appreciate HIWIN taking care of imperial customers. Now just to use a 1-2-3 block.
They show the rails/blocks with vertical mounting, so that is good.
Steve.

[simrel]

HIWIN Corporation manufactures interchangeable and non-interchangeable linear guideway blocks and rails with a high load capacity and rigidity. https://esurveys.onl/my-zaxbys-survey/