hiwin rail question

[EddyCurrent]

Eddy
Think what siliavski means is drill the end of the rail along its length offset so you don't intercept a securing bolt drilling, then drill down from the top of the rail to intercept the hole, drill & tap the end drilling for a nipple, so home all axis and grease six nipples, never seen the 15mm rails up close but you might be able to get a 3mm hole in it & that should be more than adequate for wheel bearing grease.
Regards
Mike

Thanks Mike (and silyavski) I understand that now and it sounds like a good idea. Both ends of the rails would need to be drilled.
The important thing is where to drill the exit hole in the rail, need to study some diagrams or remove a bearing to see what's best, maybe it needs more than one hole in order to reach all the races ?

[charlieuk]

The principal works with the nipples only thing I'm struggling with is that the grease is quite thick and very hard to pump in with a syringe. Is there a thinner type of grease I could use or something I could mix it with even if I have to do it more often. ? At the moment I'm just trying high performance lithium bearing grease class2

[EddyCurrent]

. . . the grease is quite thick and very hard to pump in with a syringe.

You'll need to wire the pipe to the nipples else the pressure blows them off.

There does seem to be lot of resistance, I think the rail drilling idea might be the way to go.

[mekanik]

Eddy
You could connect the bearing blocks with a piece of pipe so you charge both of them @ the same time so no need to drill both ends of the rail
regards
Mike

[Neale]

Aren't these rails hardened and ground? Can you drill (and especially tap) them?

[mekanik]

I would have thought so but Boyan seems to have managed it, perhaps he could comment.

[Boyan Silyavski]

Hiwin Lubrication Manual, so you know the proper quantities and other stuff.


Yes, that's what i meant. Drill the rail and inject grease through the rail.

Now in the manual 4.5 they say there is a thing called "Self-lubricating kit ‚E2’ "

[JAZZCNC]

Hiwin Lubrication Manual, so you know the proper quantities and other stuff.


Yes, that's what i meant. Drill the rail and inject grease through the rail.



Now in the manual 4.5 they say there is a thing called "Self-lubricating kit ‚E2’ "

Drilling the rail isn't going to help very much, you may as well just grease the rails for what good it will do. This method will only smear grease on the outer surface of the balls and the rest will come out the ends past the seals, only a very small percentage will get to where it matters. You want grease or lube on the inside of the bearings so it flows thru the circuits and end caps.
Yes it's better than nothing but the pipe and tube method is easy enough and you know the grease is getting exactly where it's needed.

Personally I'd fit a timer lubrication pump and pump oil thru the bearings. Timer pumps from china are relatively cheap now and they can be programmed to pump at regular intervals so you know the bearings are getting lubed and flag up or E-stop the machine if low on oil etc.

[Jonathan]

I don't really see what all the fuss is about, it's just a few tubes and simple parts to make on a lathe? I guess if you've not got a lathe then that doesn't help matters.

In my build log all the bearings and ballnuts are connected with tubes look towards the end of the of the first post in the thread:

http://www.mycncuk.com/threads/6484-...8616#post48616



The Y-axis rails are the same size as yours.

[EddyCurrent]

Now in the manual 4.5 they say there is a thing called "Self-lubricating kit ‚E2’ "

http://www.hiwin.com/pdf/lg/linear_guideways_e2.pdf

Looks okay, uses oil, but I don't understand why these and other accessories, Hiwin especially, are so difficult to source and purchase. it's always like finding rocking horse cac.

In the same document is Hiwin - Intelligent Linear Guideway, looks like it might have potential to be used for position feedback similar to an encoder.