I see what you are doing there. Interesting. Before my x-carve i had a ball screw driven machine but experienced, “Screw whip” when I had it moving fast. It made things a little wavy. But if you have a rock solid gantry connected to those linear bearings, you probably won’t experience any at all. My old machine was made out of MDF, so I also had “racking” to go with my whipping. What if you had two ball screws, closer to the sides driven by slaved steppers?
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I was thinking of doing that, but with my current controller I’d have to slave them on the same stepper driver, which I really want to avoid. Id have to get another driver, breakout board and db25 add in card. With ballscrews being as expensive as they are, the cost adds up quick. The design if flexible though, and has room to add a 2nd ballscrew if I find I need it, so I’m not too worried about it.
I slave on the same stepper driver all the time. Actually, the machine above is the first time I used all four axes. Fun aint it?
Well, I hate to revive a dead thread, but I finally finished upgrading the Y-Axis and figured some people might be interested 
I added another 750mm ballscrew with the same supported 16mm rails as the X-Axis.
The new side plates are made of 6"x19"x0.5" 6061 aluminum. The sliding bed (Carvey-style) is a huge slab of 14"x29"x0.375" 6061 aluminum.
The stepper wiring is very temporary, so is the X-Axis stepper mount-area, and the spindle wiring/tubing, so don’t judge (yet)! I’ve done some jogging and even a test cut. I’m getting accuracy on X&Y within .0015" on the circle/square/diamond test, and its completely rock solid. I cut aluminum no sweat; 60 ipm, 0.035" doc, and 1/4" 3fl ZrN EM slotting.
First test piece (no finish pass!)
Once I’ve got a decent method of keeping the dust out of the ballscrew, I’ll be pushing the machine to it’s limit!
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It looks very solid. Nice job!
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No idea. But this machine was set up to mill aluminum, so in its current configuration, I only have 5/8" z clearance. But this particular unit can go higher than the stock set up (if that helps).
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