Z axis almost done

Post date: May 29, 2016 12:18:23 AM

After screwing up a couple things, the Z axis is mostly done. I got the front milled flat to accept the new spindle adapter place, a hole bored through it for the leadscrew, and a cutout (plus mounting holes) for the ballnut. Oh, and a place for the bearing beneath it, of course. One little piece needs to be fabbed yet (a bearing clamp for the top side of the leadscrew), and some holes need to be tapped, but otherwise it's basically set.

A couple things really went wrong when doing this work. First, the cutout for the ballnut was too big- I screwed up the gcode offsets. Anyway, that meant that the six mounting holes for the ballnut couldn't be drilled. So... with some help and the use of a press, a new chunk of metal was machined to size and pressed in the hole. Then I drilled the holes, and machined the ballnut cavity to the proper size. There shouldn't be a lot of force on those screws (the flange is at the bottom of the carriage), so I think it's all good.

Speaking of the ballnut... that had to be reversed on the ballscrew. Now, I know there are ball bearings in there, so I was being smart, and turned a piece that would fit on the end of the ballscrew to keep the balls inside while I twisted the nut off. That... didn't work. Somehow the balls got out of their tracks anyway. Fortunately they were covered in grease, and many tedious minutes later I had them stuck back in the right place

Anyway, things are still coming together- now I just need to tap a bunch of holes, and machine some giant plates for the main structure of the machine. And then probably spend far too long re-aligning things to get them as close to square as possible.