Quote Originally Posted by Tom J View Post
Nice concept of Z axis, only problem is that doesn't allow for any adjustment other than shims. How smooth it travels up and down?
Asking as I machined similar stuff on chinese mill and wasn't parallel.
Same thing for entire machine - you are mounting rails directly to profiles - no machined base, no epoxy for leveling (parallel, squareness?)
I do not criticize you - just wander if you aim for accuracy in your machine.
Pretty smoothly. I do have a video of it turning by hand..

https://youtu.be/lEZzJ3c4UJA

I think the reason for the success in motion is the heating of various sections during the fabrication process.

I like working with steel because it warps and moves when heated.

When designing the Z most of the welding occured on Job with clamps. As the steel heats and warps it smoothly contours around its pressure points. I.e: the fasteners on the bearing blocks and the tension applied by the SBR25 rail.

Not to mention meticulous time spent hammering the fudge out of it at times :) the outer walls were hardest. They have a slight warp in the 6mm and needed lots of bashing and even driving the car over it.

Cutting a square for the ballscrew bracket was the best idea. As it allowed me to drill it then weld it back in with just the tension of the ballscrew to warp to.

There really was no other way though. Accessing the correct drill points would have been almost impossible to get right as it was completely blind.

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