Rotating Ballnut - design ideas

[SafeAirOne]

Size reduction is impossible as the nut should pass through, so that determines the size.

Hmm. In my mind, the nut attaches to the to the shaft flange and extends AWAY from the bearing housing. To have the ballnut sit INSIDE the hollow rotating shaft would make the bearings, and therefore the whole assembly, prohibitively large (in diameter), at least using a 2505 ballscrew/nut.

Shown with transparent regular ballnut, not the anti-backlash ballnut I plan to use:

Size reduction in ball screw is absolutely irrelevant as normally you will buy the 3m ball screw as maximum shipping size from China and anyway you need to stretch the ball screw properly on the machine, so you dont need any gain in sizing there, see my second build from signature.

Yes, I have been reading your 2nd build log--I've read the first page, and then skipped to the end, working my way back to the beginning. Very impressive! I see lots of good ideas in your build log. I imagine somewhere in the middle of the thread, I'll come across the change in the machine's purpose, from a CNC air hammer to a CNC router :D

As what you loose there from length is the gantry step spread, which is quite more bigger than the rotating nut assembly length.

Heh, heh...You know, I hate to say this, but I didn't really consider this. The linear rails that my gantry rides on are 3000mm long. So long as I keep the rotating ballnut assembly shorter than the length of the gantry supports, I'll have EXACTLY the same amount of travel along that axis.

Thanks for pointing this out to me! I think this alone should be cause to re-examine my design; Now that I have all this length to play with, I can explore whether using angular contact ball bearings will allow smaller bearing ODs, which in turn will reduce the distance the stationary ballscrew must be from the machine.