Tramming and ridgitity (MR-1)

MR-1
1

I made a tram tool like the one they sell (why buy when I have a mill…) and have the head of my MR-1 to .005 front to back over 12 in. Then I noticed that their is about the same amount of movement when I push or pull the head front to back. Most of it comes from the z casting to x rail assembly(4 thou) and some of it (1 or 2 thou) comes from the head /z axis rails.
Is their a way to stiffen this up or is that expected?

Also I faced my base plate again with a 3/8 end mill and it went from wash board ripples to more suttle waves with micro groves/sweral pattern that you can feel which i believe is from the tram/rigidity.

2

make sure your lead screw bearings at the bottom of the assembly are not allowing extra motion. Then you could replace all the rails X, Y, and Z with roller style rails. (very extensive mod) I would go with the Hiwin RG series with medium preload. I considered this but I just don’t think it’s worth it. Just run the MR-1 till you’ve made enough money to buy this machine for $50k.

This is my current plan…