Hello everyone,
First of all, I must admit my admiration for this site and everyone in it, I love browsing around and checking out everyone's ingenious ideas!
I'm on a quest to improve the taig cnc mill. There has been a lot wrong with the design and now that I have a means to improve it, I am trying my best to fix it up. My first modification that I am currently doing is replacing the huge induction motor with a 400W servo I scored off of ebay. I am using an ION drive to control it with great precision. I'm driving it through a timing belt for a full speed range of 0-10000RPM. I will be sure to post pictures when I am finished..
I'm planning on stiffening the vertical column up, since it has a way of moving under load and leveraging vibrations down to the workpiece. I'm still thinking of an easy way to do this. I actually found some concrete slabs at Home Depot and bolted the machine down, hoping to damping vibrations. Then, I lined carpet damping material underneath the block. Then, I added another layer of concrete and carpet foam. The result is the machine is very secure and it doesnt vibrate the floor anymore.
My question is, can I replace the Taig bearings for better performance? I was thinking of using some Abec5-Abec7 ceramic bearings to do the job. I know that the bearings are 17mm ID and 40mm OD, but how deep are they? Furthermore, are these angular contacts? I am assuming they are preloaded because the shaft has zero play that I can feel. Hopefully they didn't preload regular deep-groove bearings for this. If they are angular contact, I am guessing the dimensions are 17X40X17.5mm. Can anyone verify this?
I would really like to run the taig at 10000RPM without the headstock getting too hot, which I think the ceramic bearings would handle a bit better. Does anyone have experience with this???
Thanks a lot!,
Steve