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Interesting... something to ponder for my router design.

Seems like my X axis belt is Urethane Belting and it has Kevlar reinforcing cords and my Y axis belts are Neoprene Belting and it has fiberglass reinforcing cords. The only steel reinforced belts they offer are the A10 size which is a bit big for my machine.

John

BigJohnT wrote:
Do you know how they preload the pinions?

John[/quote]

I took a few pictures of one about six years ago as I was thinking of copying it. Of course I have no idea where the pictures went. IIRC they used a third gear to drive the two that rode the rack. By careful consideration of the geometry they ran with some interference. There was still some spring preload to the rack.

Single spring preloaded pinions are also common. The involute path of a rack gear is a straight line so it is possible to increase the depth of engagement to full contact without ill effects.

Large machines typically use rack in easily replaceable 4-6 foot sections. Ours (60 feet long) had the rails and rack bolted to the concrete on adjustable supports, about a foot high.

Doug

Iv seen a few plasma and alot more laser machines that use ball screws. messer makes lasers with ball screws and shop saber makes plasma/router machines with ball screws. Shop saber tells me they reach 700ipm with servos. I looked at one that was a router table ran 400 ipm no problem hogging threw alot of material. As for accuracy of the plasma, the curf vary about 4 thousands with hyperthem 1000 finecut (powermax 65 now). Has anyone seen a company using the preload rack and pinion ? I would be interested in getting a price quote.

ShopSaber Y Axis