Siff' Build Log

[Jonathan]

I believe the bearing plates will be strong enough. I know some builds don't even use bearings on the 'floating' side and they will be made from 15mm ally.

That sounds reasonable as long as they are mounted securely.

quick question, where do i get pulleys from with a 10mm bore to fit the ballscrews? And can I get the belts in any length? Should I add a tensioner further down the line?

I think this is the cheapest place (HTD is the best):
http://bearingstation.co.uk/products...HTD_Pulley_5mm

You could drill it out to 10mm, but that's very hit and miss unless you have a set of drills in 0.1mm increments and even then I'd bore it. Or use a reamer, but then it's still not likely to be concentric.
Get them delivered to me and it's only about a 10 minute job for me to bore them to 10mm accurately.

There's various length belts at that site ... you'll soon find the formula to work out the belt length for a given centre distance (it's pretty simple). If not I can send you a spreadsheet with it. I just made it so that the 4 holes that mount the motor are slotted so that you can accommodate different length belts and different pulleys.

Finally, once I have bolted together all of the y axis and confirmed it is square/smooth etc, If I weld along the seems (lack of a better word) will it cause the ally to distort at all?

It defiantly would with steel, ... this implies it's worse with aluminium:
http://www.aws.org/wj/2003/02/028/

You need to design it such that there is adjustment designed in to the relevant parts such that it does not matter if it distorts. Obviously clamp it well when you weld it... I did that with mine and didn't really notice any distortion.