I’ve put in an order for a stepper motor and ball screw – quite excited and pleased that this online reseller (which we’ll name later) has responded. We’ll see if the experience of dealing with online merchants is any good; otherwise we’ll be continuing our walkabout across Binondo streets and alleys to find suppliers for these (and several other) key parts.
Sooo… The plan for this XY positioning table is taking shape. I’ve gotten quite a few ideas from off the `Net that can feed into its design, mainly from enthusiast sites and manufacturers’ catalogs. A new, major idea design goal is to alleviate the “sticker shock” that greets the serious amateur machinist. After several weeks of having this response1 to part prices on the Internet, I’ve decided to engage the help of a nearby machinist to make some of the less intricate bits from aluminum and steel bar stock. These will include the end-thrust bearings and support blocks, as well as the linear rails that will support the workpiece table.
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- A response I now call my “what the fuck sticker shock” response, or WTFSS, which symptoms include uncontrollable bursts of profanity, i.e. “Kagaguhan!“, “…punyeta, ano?!“, and the highly effective “pack sheet talaga, oo. Packsheet…” followed by voracious reading of tech specs and construction techniques and watching machinists’ YouTube videos (said watching interspersed with chuckles of “ooh, hanep…!”).