[celephicus]

Everyone's CNC table seems to use toothed belt or racks. Has anyone ever tries using trace wire (stranded cable intended for fishermen) and pulleys? The trace wire would have to wrap round the drive pulley a few times to avoid slipping. For a CNC table where the forces are just due ro movement rather than transferred from the tool I can't see why it wouldn't work.

[BobVanDyke]

You might want to look at thread by Appicnc, "Wire Rope instead of belts / ballscrews". It is possible to use cable to run small cnc machines. It is important to add the working loads on the cable to the preload needed on the cable. The larger the total load the larger the pulleys and drive shaft. You also need to consider how to keep the wire from overlapping the wire next to it as it winds on and off the drive shaft.

[celephicus]

Thanks for the links. I don't need extremely high accuracy. I was just going to wind the cable once round a 100mm V groove pulley for the drive rather than using a drum. I am not making moon rockets, only metal sculpture, so a mm either way matters not one little bit. I just wanted to see how cheap I could go and have a usable CNC plasma cutter.

[Islam]

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/cnc-wo...mechanism.html