by LeonS » Mon Jun 14, 2010 12:53 pm
Hello All,
I am still around and lurking. I am about ready to re-purpose my Chinese 40 watt laser into a DIY Laser based on the great work all of you have been doing. I will probably be asking for advice in the near future.
Anyway back to the subject of this thread.....
I saw an interesting possibility for cheap V-groove bearings on another forum. Actually, it would be a work-alike for V-groove bearings.
You merely take two skate bearings and stack them with an appropriate size washer (thickness and diameter) between them and bolt them to your device that you want to slide. The trick is to rely on the slightly round edges of the outer cylinder of the bearings to rest easily on the V extrusion. The washer separating the bearings should be small enough in diameter to not touch the "V". The distance beteen the contact points is determined by the washer thickness. This option would clearly be less engineered then the dual bearing with offset contacts that Bart described, but it might work fine for the light weight stress of a DIY Laser. The cost would be under $2 a pop.
The other option discussed earlier of mimicking the bearings in cheap Chinese lasers with little simple bearings identified in the Lasersafe's previous post is also seems viable. It would necessitate using a rail with a grove on each side. This would be pretty inexpensive too.
Do you think either of these options might work adequately?
Regards to all,
Leon