Greetings all; I am about at that stage in this conversion where I am about to hang the Z screw. I have some bellows to serve as debris shields around the screw. So I'll need to make "nipples" to connect the bellows, at the support bearings and at the traveler nut mount. Alu rod enough for that I have.
But the bellows need venting somehow, and it seems to me the best way is to rig an air bypass around the nut so its effectively a sealed, constant volume system with no swarf ingress. The nut carrier is not drilled thru at any of the nut mounting holes but it seems to me the best way would be to drill the center hole in each 3 bolt pattern clear thru the carrier, putting mount bolts in only 4 of the 6 positions of the bolt pattern, and make the nipples on the nut with a carved passage from the center that reaches the thru hole, thereby giving moderately free air flow around the nut by way of the 2 empty boltholes while maintaining a near constant volume inside the bellows. That it seems would discourage to a large degree, any chance of sucking in swarf or other dirt to shorten the life of the ball screw. The other end of the nut carrier will be drilled and tapped for small bolts to retain these nipples. The end bearing supports will also need drilled & tapped to mount the nipples on the end's of the screw, but that can be just a flush mount, 2 bolts, sealed to the bearing bracket with some sili-seal. It should be more free flowing than trying to find room for some 1/8" pipe to hose barb fittings and bypassing with plastic tubing. Anybody got a better idea than sacrificing two of the six bolt positions to make the coupling vents? Thank you all for any guidance. Cheers, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, SlashDot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
