MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
Just building up a test rig and wondered if anyone had some good reasonably priced sources of the following:
1. lead screws including nuts, mounts etc
2. linear bearings, rod and mounts (currently tempted to just use RS)
3. extruded aluminium sections with T-nut channels that can be bolted together to form nice rigid and adaptable frames - I don't know the name of the stuff but have an image in my head
4. Pulleys, toothed belts etc - again might just use RS
Have seem some lead screws on ebay (good for cheap, low volume materials for projects like this) but also tempted to go for a ball screw if I only use 1 for the vertical and a lower cost belt for the horizontal for better wear performance and speed.
The aluminium stuff is commonly known as 'Bosch section'. You can buy the proper boch stuff or rs sell cheaper copies called aluminium extrusion or something like that.
For bearings etc. bearing boys.co.uk is pretty good.
WDS have quite a lot of bits and bobs.....
Screwfix are quite useful too
1, 2 & 4 - look at WDS, Automotion (that's motion, not mation), Misumi, Wixroyd and perhaps IGUS for polymer bushes/bearings/energy chains.
3 - there are loads of companies doing extrusion frame systems. The most commonly used that I know of is Bosch Rexroth. It is quite expensive I seem to remember compared to other systems, but I am struggling to remember any other brands off the top of my head...
I would say misumi is the cheapest for that kind of stuff. Order the catalogues online for free as the website is very confusing without them. It takes about 10 days for stuff from them as it all comes from Japan.
Al frame supplier I use is MBS who supply Item bits. I've made a frame jig with it, plus use it alot at work. For bearings, IGUS do some good stuff, plus often available from RS.
Others already mentioned Wixroyd and On-Drives.
We always used THK for leadscrews/nuts & linear guides but I don't know if they'd be cheapest; but also what richmars said.
http://www.zappautomation.co.uk/
hiwin are a good deal cheaper than THK
http://www.hpcgears.com/ ar good cheap for toothed pulleys
Ballscrews are also better for positioning
Just on top of what bigsurfer said about Misumi...a lot of their stuff comes from Germany too - I think they have a distribution centre there. Sales are definitely handled through their German office now.
Worth getting their catalogue as suggested...