gregormarwick
Diamond
- Joined
- Feb 7, 2007
- Location
- Aberdeen, UK
We have a big old manual lathe with a 15" hollow spindle in decent mechanical condition that I'm considering doing a retro on. We have had to decline a fair amount of work recently that we could have done if this lathe was cnc. The retro itself doesn't phase me, btdt. And I have almost everything I need to do it on hand. I have a decent selection of high quality ground ballscrews that I can use for the cross slide, but I would have to buy one for the z axis. The lathe already has a scale that I could integrate easily enough so the accuracy of the ballscrew wouldn't be a big concern. A small amount of backlash probably wouldn't be a big deal either. Given the size of the machine, I'd likely need at least a 50mm fine pitch screw at 3m long, and these get pricey. C5 rolled is much more affordable, but I've never worked with rolled ones before. Besides the loss of accuracy are there any other major downsides to a rolled ballscrew that I need to consider?