[yukonho]

Roughly equivalent to 5 tpi. Ballscrews may be down the road someday. I am building this machine to be my last (unless I ever decide to turn this into a business again..) and am leaving the design open for upgrade in the future. I will be using V groove bearings on supported steel rod (homebrew supported the entire length) but am designing it so that linear slides will be a bolt on option down the road if I ever feel the need or desire.
colin

[Normsthename]

I am building this machine to be my last (unless I ever decide to turn this into a business again..) and am leaving the design open for upgrade in the future. I will be using V groove bearings on supported steel rod (homebrew supported the entire length) but am designing it so that linear slides will be a bolt on option down the road if I ever feel the need or desire.

My machine uses the old faithful 'Skate' Bearings running on hardened shafts.
I could not afford linear slides, but I also designed my machine to make it upgradable if required.
The 'Skate' bearings work very well, but were a real pain to setup.
Both screws can easily be turned by hand, but my puny 1nm motors lost steps.
My router is the first one that I have built, there are loads of things I would have changed now that I know a little more!
Good luck with the build!

Andy

[JustPlaneSweet]

Gudel has an interesting approach to building an axis.

http://www.gudel.com/en/products/robotics/robospeed/

We have a larger version of this gantry on our floor and what they did was use a large relatively thin tube with lots of small fasteners to hold the guideways. The guides are rectangular bars with oversize cam followers on the carriage.

JustPlaneSweet

[yukonho]

I just checked out my bill, I have 480 oz in motors, so I am laughing!
This machine will be my fourth, I have learned a lot and will incorporate all I can in this machine.
I am certainly open to opinions and ideas as this design/build continues, let them rip!
Colin

[JustPlaneSweet]

Check out the construction of MultiCam routers. http://www.multicam.com/eng/Products/routers.html Gudel has an interesting construction. They take a skin cut on the tubing and then bolt short sections of guides onto the tubing with small bolts. Our company has one of their units based on the FP-6HD. For as big and burley the units are, they are still cam rollers riding on simple steel bars. One bar has a rack and the drive servo with a pinion is carried on the carriage. http://www.gudel.com/en/products/modules/fp/

Check our Gudel's download area, a ton of ideas there.

Stan