![\"gas](\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7008\/6690650429_bdd0b35522_b.jpg\" "\\"gas")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe stock part is a 50 lb. gas spring with ball-joint fittings, McMaster part #4138T621. I simply drilled a hole in the column (and tapped it for 5\/16-18) for the lower pivot, but the upper pivot point wanted to be above the top of the head to allow for a full 12″ of travel. I designed and machined a simple aluminum part to extend the upper pivot point and mounted it to the head. While I was at it I also machined a nice little cap to cover the hole where the Z-axis crank was. The backlash in the lead screws has been giving me relatively poor surface finishes, so I bead blasted these parts to even them out. I like the look, but the “toothy” surface really grabs onto dirt.<\/p>\n I was hoping to double the rapid speed I could get out of the Z-axis, but I didn’t quite make it… It went from 15 in\/min to about 25 in\/min, although I just bought some better way oil so we’ll see if that makes up the difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In this minor modification I added a 50 lb. gas spring between the column and the head, meant to assist the Z-axis motor in lifting the weight of the head. The stock part is a 50 lb. gas spring with ball-joint fittings, McMaster part #4138T621. I simply drilled a hole in the column (and tapped […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[38],"tags":[44,35,34,40],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jmillerid.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jmillerid.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jmillerid.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmillerid.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmillerid.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmillerid.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":572,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmillerid.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions\/572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jmillerid.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmillerid.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jmillerid.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"gas](\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7174\/6690650789_2c23560812_b.jpg\" "\\"gas")
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