Air assisted ball/screw on Z axis(table height) ?

Thanks to everybody for the helpful answers given already, here's another one:

The mills that Tim & I got have a plate on the Z axis drive motor that says:

"This Machine has an air-assisted Z axis ball screw. The knee clamps must
be tightened if the air pressure is removed and the console turned off.
Otherwise the knee will lower itself to its bottom-most position."


Could anyone shed more light on this and the concept of air assisted ball
screws.

Thanks, Lee



At 09:08 AM 9/18/00 -0500, you wrote:

>
>>
>> Message: 16
>> Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 04:08:11 -0000
>> From: "Alvaro Fogassa" <fogassa@...>
>> Subject: Re: greetings
><snipped>
>>
>> Ray,will that be a zero backlash ballscrews?I just finished the retro
>> on mine and had the same idea on a "kit" to retrofit the minimill.the
>> good thing about using ballscrews is that ones can use smaller
>> motors.I'm using size23 motors rated at 80oz direct drive.
>
>Let's talk cooperation. Perhaps we should take some of the details off
>list although we don't plan on being proprietary with this project.
>
>We plan on using some oversiize nuts for the McMaster Carr 5/8. This
>gets backlash ~0.001 which the EMC and I suspect most other controllers can
>handle without getting quirky.
>
>The motor info is good news. What kinds of control and amps are you using
>and what rapid speed do you get with them?
>
>Ray
>
>
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