Ballscrew’s

I’ve had a Mini Mill CNC’d with the stock Acme screws and home made motor mounts for just under a year. I went that route because I wanted to keep manual control and figured making it myself would give me a better understanding of the way it works and I’d save a few $.

After a year I have not touched the manual controls, decided to go ballscrews – I also decided to just get a ready made kit this time from CNC Fusion for a few reasons, mainly some binding at the limits of the Z and Y and some other minor stuff, because its a pretty good value and I wanted to get it up and running as quick as possible this time.

Kit 4

http://www.cncfusion.com/minimill1.html

Took just under 2 weeks to arrive (says 2 week turnaround on website so no problem there) and 1 day to remove all my old stuff, clean, adjust gibs and get the new kit mounted. The only modification to the mill it required was 2 holes drilled into column and a bit of grinding at the back of the base (couple mm) so the Y axis screw would fit.

I can now rapid at 150 IPM (just for shits n giggles…I have it set to 50ipm), have no binding anywhere and more travel than before.

Would have been cheaper to go ballscrews first, but then I wouldnt be able to appreciate how much nicer they are.

Apparantly Photobucket cut their storage limits so now all of a sudden I’m over – Pictures/video will follow.