I decided to go with a spindle motor, mostly because my tolerance for loud noise is really low since I had a head injury several years ago.
I wanted to keep friction as low as possible so I went with a 1/4" sheet of UHMW bolted to 1/2" ply. UHMW is super slick, but it’s expensive and it can warp so attaching it to ply should keep it stiff and it kept cost down.
The 8mm linear rail and screw was cheap online.
I also carved a groove in the plywood and cut down an old vacuum attachment so I can directly hook up a vacuum hose.
Thanks, I have a big chunk of steel which should bring it up to 27.4lbs which is slightly heavier than i wanted, but it will do for now. I can drill some holes or grind a bit of weight off later.
The gt2 belt and pulley look great, I want to see how fast z axis moves first
