Ballscrew & Linear Rail Kit - Any Good

[tonyfoale]

I just came across this thread and thought that some of my adventures with ball screws, bearing mounting blocks, and making ball nuts fit where they shouldn't might be of interest.
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...598#post174256

[BeagleBrainz]

I saw the video on YouTube a week or 2 ago. Very impressed.

[m.marino]

[QUOTE=WoodKnot;125523]

Yes, you seen it right. I have a fairly large room, which is a home office / hobby room / software, firmware and electronic development center, photo studio, as well as other hobby activity room. My CNC and my two 3D printers are used in this room as well. However, I NEVER use any liquids to cool and lubricate, I print only PLA and PETG, my spindle is air cooled, my CNC is covered around and I use a dust shoe when milling PCB and most other things. I don't mill any wood. Anyway, this solution suits me well.

Just had to read up on PLA - I am in the recycling industry and i have never heard of it - so its a biopolymer, but not a commodity polymer.

Looks like it composts well!

What do use it for? Is it brittle, it does not sound like a flexible polymer?

WoodKnot

PLA as mentioned is a very common filament used in FDM/FFM 3D printing of plastics. While the numbers look very good for biodegradability it actually requires specialized enezyme to get the best results. Other wise it is rather slow in degrading (think oak leaves and other durable starches. Depending on what is added to it can be rather strong and can be post processed with heat to cause further interlayer bonding as well as increase cross linakges of the polymers. Not UV stable but does have a rather slow UV degradation (Longer than Polypropylene plastics). Can be solvent smoothed with certain chemicals and as such is less tolerant than say the PET/CPE family. Can be made food safe.

Hope that gives a few better ideas on it. Used heavily in the miniature and modeling community as it is one of the cheapest filaments in the industry. Not considered an engineering material though.

Also having been one of those folks who bought a machine that did NOT use proper bearings (or even blocks to be honest). I can tell you the headaches from chasing down chatter, flex, runout and a mess of other issues is not something I would wish on anyone. That was a long time ago and I have a much better machine now that needs some servicing and new ballscrews on the X axis. That and doing some work preparing hopefully to move to the US.