I have a quick question…. While building a table for my machine with the space to store the water table under it, I needed to remove the end stops for the gantry to get some measurements. Well, of course, I forgot and pushed the gantry rearward ejecting most of the ball bearings. In an attempt to make myself feel better about a stupid mistake I’m wondering if there are any upgraded bearings? The original ones seemed fine, however they were obviously of Asian origin. I realize buying four (likely more expensive) bearings will turn this into an even more financially painful experience, but I’m wondering if there is any benefit to going down this road (other than making myself feel better). Anyone know anything about the bearings or if there are any upgrades available?
Unless you are going to replace the rails and adjust the offsets to the gear rack, you should stick with the ones CNCRP uses. These are pretty much the standard and are high quality.
If you need more ball bearings, you can buy new balls on McMaster and reload them. Just mic a few of the remaining ones and order a bag of those.
I’ve rebuilt the carriages before and it is tedious but not really that hard.
You’re going to need a few of these:
https://www.avidcnc.com/20-mm-linear-bearing-block-flush-grease-fitting-p-576.html
Thanks for the info! I actually pulled both rear blocks off and was able found all but 1 ball bearing. Using enough grease to hold the bearings in I was able to rebuild the blocks even without the plastic insert they are shipped with (tossed those when I built the machine) to capture the bearings when not on the rail. I called Avid and they said the bearings blocks were fine even missing a couple balls.