FUNCTIONING BALL SCREW by jttv2000

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

please note that this is intended at being a display piece not a working part though it could be adapted for that.
The story of how this came to be is kind of an interesting one. The Youtuber Maker's Muse kept mentioning that if he were to design a 3d printer that he would use ball screws instead of lead screws. That got me quite curious as to what in the world he was talking about as I am currently a engineering student in college. Upon researching what a ball screw was I found there to be a lack of quality 3d animations for ball screws. I'm always up for a good 3d design challenge and I figured what the heck I'll give it a shot. This is what I ended up with. I was only able to get 7 out of 59 bearing balls animated due to PC performance limitations with SolidWorks. Once I had the animation done I figured why not go a step further and make it a desktop model. I "cut" the side of the return tube so you could see the bearing balls moving.
Finished product
If for some unknown reason you decide to print this then you will need the followsPRINT
1 Threaded Rod End
atleast 2 threaded rod middles
2 Threaded Rod Supports
1 Handle
1 Ball screw
BUY
a section of 10mm rod
59 1/4in bearing balls
I assembled it using some 5 min epoxy and some assorted screws I found lying around the house.