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Legacy Engineering | Motion Controls

Ballscrew Driven Motion

Ball Screw

Northwood employs the most respected mechanical drives in the machine tool industry--ground, precision, reciprocating ballscrew systems. These drives are renowned for their ability to carry extremely high loads smoothly, efficiently, and quietly with little or no maintenance. This means that little or no power is consumed by the inefficiency of the drive system, leading to more accurate servo control and more work done at the tool.

In addition, ballscrews are the number one choice for eliminating backlash in linear drive systems. Unlike various forms of rack and pinion systems, ballscrews use rolling elements in raceways thereby eliminating the sliding that occurs during engagement and disengagement.  This can be done using the elastic deformation properties of the rolling elements using negative clearance raceways or by using offset races in the ballnuts themselves.

Designers have tried to devise various tricks to circumvent these issues because rack systems are cheaper. One of the most common rack designs uses opposing pinions with some sort of pre-loadable linkage such as a chain.  The problem with that design is if they are adjusted too low or high or the backlash is too high, the wear becomes excessive and efficiency plummets. Another problem with rack systems is that the relationship between the pitch circle of the pinion gear and the pitch line of the rack is very critical both for positioning accuracy and backlash.  If those two pitch components are not perfectly tangent, then the system will detect binding (when the pinion tries to travel too deep) or release (when the pinion leaves the pitch line slightly and creates "play").  In either circumstance, the linear speed of the system will fluctuate.

Ballscrews are an integral unit by design, and thus retain a consistent working relationship; wherever the screw is mounted and aligned, that’s where the nut goes. Because Northwood utilizes a rotating-nut design on most of its system, the screw can be pretension, fixed, and laser calibrated for long-lasting, world-class performance. If you examine any high-end machine tool, five-axis CNC, or precision grinding machine in the world, you will likely find a precision ballscrew drive.

GE Fanuc Motion Controls

Fanuc Motion Control

GE Fanuc is the industry leader for high-performance, high-reliability CNCs.  The new Series 0i CNC is the proud successor to the Series 0, the world’s most popular CNC with more than 400,000 units in service. It demonstrates the unsurpassed performance and reliability of GE Fanuc CNCs, available on a wide range of affordable machine tools. The Series 0i includes over 200 standard features that are designed to increase the productivity of your operation and to continue to deliver results over the life of your investment. The Series 0i family of controllers features two different models--the Series 0i Mate, which is GE Fanuc’s CNC controller offering the best value of the Series 0i family, and the full-featured Series 0i. Both models are compatible with the latest GE Fanuc drive technology.

Using advanced microchip technology, Northwood’s CNCs are compact yet rugged. The advantages of Northwood’s precise, high-performance digital servo systems are evident in the quality of every part that you make. Northwood offers a standard 18-month warranty on its machining centers, but with an average fourteen-year mean time between failures, it will probably be a long time before you need to take advantage of Northwood’s technical and replacement part support.

GE Fanuc offers a wide range of value-added services that can lower your overall cost of ownership.  GE Fanuc is loaded with the following premium features to ensure maximum productivity: