Alex,
I know a little about air bearings. Just the surface stuff, but definitely
not in depth. I do know there has been at
least one article written for skilled home shop machinists on making an air
bearing spindle- I remember tolerances
of +/- 0.0002 mentioned on the walls. It is doable- but it is very very
difficult. At that point, you aren't machining anymore-
you are doing internal grinding work. Doable, but very challenging. Normal
people that aren't grinding specialists, without
the positioning equipment, would find it impossible. I don't think my
normal equipment could go quite that low to grind
accurately at that level. I could maybe do it with a hand graver, on a very
short area, but not with a large bearing and
grinding. That's beyond my ability. We'd need something like zero-backlack
ballscrews to position accurately for that.
Linear air bearings- I would love to learn more about those- don't
understand them at all. Only rotating ones somewhat.
2 things- that box in the background he has, with the 2 holes in it back
behind the window- that's a laser welder. He
is very very well equipped. Those are extremely expensive. Also- did you
notice he could zero the runout of his chuck
running on the air bearings? That's a feature of a collet chuck- except, in
a 4 Jaw. I would love to see how he made that
chuck- that is a very exotic ability for a normal chuck.
-Andrew
On Sat, Feb 6, 2016 at 11:03 PM, Alex Reasinger <alexreasinger@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
From what i have found they run at 60-80psi.
http://www.newwayairbearings.com/
The are only flying 5micron (0.0002in) about the other surface so there is
not much room for the air to compress.
The amount of deflection due to the compression of the air would have to
due with the amount of surface area. 60psi on a 1in by 2in surface is 120
lbf and you would have more then one bearing per surface.
Air bearing spindles are very common in high precision applications. the
runout of an air bearing is far better then anything you can achieve with
mechanical bearings. you can run air bearing spindles at much higher speeds.
The tolerances for linear bearings would not be as bad as you may think.
If you mount them on a ball and socket mount you no longer have to worry
about the parallel and squareness of the overall part. All you have to
worry about is the bearing surface flatness and finish. On a small part
should be able to hand lap that.
Air bearings could be do able.
When i was working on my steam engine i was playing around with the air
and had the two parts acting like an air bearing.
I may need to start playing around with making an air bearing. this could
be fun.
On Sat, Feb 6, 2016 at 8:43 PM, Joachim Hall <jjoachimhall@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
How much pressure do you supply to an air bearing? I would think on a
lathe spindle it would get pushed off center when you start applying a
cutting load and the surfaces would rub. But I guess if you had enough air
pressure...
-Joachim
On Sat, Feb 6, 2016 at 7:14 PM, Andrew C. <soshumasamune@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Oh dear god, they finally found it. THE lathe.
Alex I knew you would find this. I didn't know how long it would take,
but yeah. This lathe is absolutely ridiculous.
I honestly don't think anyone at hack pittsburgh would have any project
needing 1 micron accuracy, but I want this
lathe, bad.
Air bearings though, are doable. They can be machined yourself, but the
tolerences are crazy tight, and they have to be
dead on to work right. If you could do an air bearing spindle for your
lathe, that would be the ultimate- 100,000 RPM and
micro tiny parts at constant surface speed would be doable.
-Andrew
On Sat, Feb 6, 2016 at 3:21 PM, Joachim Hall <jjoachimhall@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I've seen this video before! It amazes me every time. It's amazing how
all those parts are just floating on air.
On Feb 6, 2016 2:45 PM, "Alex Reasinger" <alexreasinger@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
probably to much for hackPGH to buy, but it does give me some
inspiration for the lathe i am working on.
I am now looking up epoxy granite and air bearings.
On Sat, Feb 6, 2016 at 2:39 PM, John Lewis <oflameo2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm interested. How much would it be?
On 02/06/2016 02:27 PM, Alex Reasinger wrote:
https://youtu.be/sFrVdoOhu1Q
