Hi all! I need a high temperature (~200C) motion system for ahem reasons. I know that at those temperatures steppers tend to cook, so keeping them inside the heated chamber is out of the question. I have already considered belts, screws (lead and ball) and stainless cable. Belts will not work because they will melt. Screws do not allow for static motor mounting and stainless steel cable has slip and extreme tension. Do you guys think chains and sprockets will work? Are they precise enough? Any input is welcome.
Chain shouldn’t be a problem. The precision comes from the motors, not the link size.
You’ll need to make sure your tension system can take up the slack you’ll create at 200c though, as well as considering how you’ll deal with backlash.
Good luck!
Not an engineer, but I guess it could work given a fine enough chain and precise enough gears. Lubrication at those temperatures might be a pain though?
I have found a lot of grease brands with the operating temperature well above 200C. But yeah, the problem is always with precision. I guess I need to look for a strong enough fine chain now. Thanks for the help.
I’m not real familiar with it, but you might look for some chain with a width wider than one link. Seems like that would provide you behavior more similar to belts. It seems McMaster sells double link width, but there may be other sources of finer/wider variations.
You could water cool your steppers with an external pump/coolant refrigerator
For high temp, maybe consider a foxed nozzle in XY and only moves up in Z and the bed moves in X and Y. Like a CNC mill.
Wow, good idea. I am kind of considering going delta, but this is a good approach too. Will think on it. Cheers!