Hey thanks all for your thumbs up.
I was wondering what anyone thought of the gas spring I attached to the z-axis end plate. This was a solution I came up with to counter a problem I only realized when I started testing the machine. The problem was that the entire z-axis assembly is heavy and that there is too little friction and mechanical resistance in the bearings and ball screw/nut. Under its own weight and no power applied, the z-axis would start to move and work its way down until it would slam to a stop. The servo has no problem driving it up and down despite the force of gravity working against it. But once power was cut, or if the gecko drive faulted, the servo would freespin and the axis would slide down again and come to a very hard stop. If the router is running while this happens, I could unintentionally drill a hole into my t-slot table, yikes!!
So I came up with the gas spring idea. I made a stop a the local auto store and picked one up and mounted it into the z-axis end plate. Turns out that this spring contained too high of a pressure and would drive the z-axis up! This wasn't what I wanted either. The final solution was a reduceable force gas spring I found in McMaster Carr. This allowed me to bleed off the pressure a little bit at a time to just the right amount of spring force to HOLD the z axis in its current position. It worked like a charm and I had to give myself a pat on the back.
Has anyone else encountered this problem and what was your solution?
Here's the picture:
http://www.spear-diver.com/temp/images/dsc01633.jpg
Gil