I just got a used pair of linear rail with 4 bearing guides on it. Pretty good deal for the length. The bearings are Bosch Rexroth R165111320.
One of the bearing trucks pushes unevenly. It sticks a little, then slides for like 1/4", and feels another bump. When you slide it fast you get some vibration from that. The rail itself is fine, the second guide rolling over the same area is smooth. The problem guide still feels "tight" to me, there's no movement in an axis it's not supposed to move in, nor does it twist.
Well it's not damaging the rail (now), but should I look into this before building it into a Z-axis?
What could cause this? Missing balls or damaged balls or what?
What's the best way to investigate? As I understand it, if I slide this off the rail, all the balls go flying, right? Well I'm not 100% certain of that and I'd like to look at the balls to understand the cause, but I gotta know if it's ok to do that.
How do I figure out what ball size it uses? Google is failing me here.
One of the bearing trucks pushes unevenly. It sticks a little, then slides for like 1/4", and feels another bump. When you slide it fast you get some vibration from that. The rail itself is fine, the second guide rolling over the same area is smooth. The problem guide still feels "tight" to me, there's no movement in an axis it's not supposed to move in, nor does it twist.
Well it's not damaging the rail (now), but should I look into this before building it into a Z-axis?
What could cause this? Missing balls or damaged balls or what?
What's the best way to investigate? As I understand it, if I slide this off the rail, all the balls go flying, right? Well I'm not 100% certain of that and I'd like to look at the balls to understand the cause, but I gotta know if it's ok to do that.
How do I figure out what ball size it uses? Google is failing me here.