Quote Originally Posted by JAZZCNC View Post
Personally I'd go with 1610 it's a better all round pitch. Not sure what you mean by only buying the screws and sorting the nut later because it's normal to buy the ballscrew and ballnut together.
RE: Turning. Even thou I have a good lathe and capable of turning my own screws I dont bother and buy them pre-machined from china, It's just not worth me doing it my self for what they charge.

I'd save and buy the ballscrews before buy cheap and replace later as it's often more than just quick swap over job due to the differant way the connect or work, Plus cheap acme lead screw is rubbish and good quality acme lead is more expensive than ballscrews from china.!!
Ah, I don't think my post was as clear as it should have been, my apologies.

I'm planning to go for ballscrew+ballnut, but I noted that, depending on where you look, there seems to be a big jump in price from the ballnuts without preload/zero backlash to the ones that do have it (which I would think are preferable). Going cheaper would get me running sooner, and having a working (albeit lower precision) machine to play with while building up more funds is preferable to me. There also seemed to be suggestions for ways to increase the effectiveness of the lower end ballnuts, though now that I think about it, they may have been talking about the acme setups. Hmm.

As for turning the ballscrews, I suppose that's a matter of perspective. If you have the skills and equipment but your time is money then yes, turning the ends down to fit the bearings probably is better left to the supplier. Would I do it that way? Ask me in 5 years

1610 rather than 1605, you say? I shall run that though the collection of calculations I'm building up.

The following picture is a rough mockup of what it's running - working area was originally planned at 200mmx200mm for the table, will have to be bigger simply to fit the stepper in the location parallel to the screw. The gantry will be close to the table but large so the X can run up quite high and still be supported, for reasons discussed elsewhere. "Scale" is a dirty word as far as this picture is concerned, don't read too much into it. The XY will not be completely seperate from the gantry, it was just easier to draw that way!

Click image for larger version. 

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