Fehlmann Picomax 50 CNC conversion/refurb

[Agathon]

Very nice vid. Would you mind giving a link to where you purchased the balls from. Tnx

Hi Clive, I just ordered them through my local branch of Brammer - 1/8" Chrome steel balls, Grade 100 £10.08 for 500. These nuts have about 0.004" clearance, so I did look into getting balls at 0.127" - but they were very expensive ranging from £58 - £82. As I say in the vid, I realised this wasn't the right way to go with this type of nut.

I have my nuts sprung together one quarter ton. I hold the X screw in tension, Y and Z I crush angular contact bearings together. Everything is one quarter ton and feels glorious.

I sprung my Roland mini-mill to 200 lbf, I don't have a magic formula, I just use whatever seems right.

Do you have a way to inject oil in to the nuts or do you depend on that grease? I started fitting narrow bore nylon tube to carry oil but one of the push fit connectors didn't fit and I wanted to play cutting stuff so I left it out. I think I have to strip back and finish the job. Gravity feed is traditional but would that need wider bore piping? Such fun.

For a moment I was worried that I might have put you off with talk of backlash. Glad to see you back.

The machine's central lubrication system is very comprehensive and delivers oil to the ball-nuts and ball screw in a couple of places.

I'll put the x-axis back together later today and see if there's any improvement on the backlash.