Motorized Slide for non-STEM project

[gblake]

Folks,

I need to buy some motorized slides for a non-STEM, real-world project. I'm looking for Vendor suggestions.

This is a something of a one-off project (its the first prototype of what will probably be fewer than 5 or 10 eventual copies).

For that reason, we are giving soviet-style simpilicity, and ease-of-use/maintenance much higher weight than sophisticated function, when we are evaluating our options.

Who has a favorite vendor/brand/model that is in the same ball park as the "requirements" in the next few lines?

We need repeatability and accuracy that is probably at the high-end of belt-drive slides, and the middle or lower-end of ball-screw drives. We aren't doing surgery or testing integrated circuits, but we do want repeatability in the +/- 0.125" range.


We are moving a target object in 3 dimensions and need unobstructed access to the target from our tool/sensors along one of those dimensions (axis).

The dimension of unobstructed access is also the direction in which our target needs to move the fastest. In the other two directions, it can move a bit slower, and then slower still.

Our Payload is in the range of 10-20 Lb.

We want to move the payload 24-48" in the fast direction, and 18-24 inches in the remaining directions.

We are thinking that we will create an H frame for the bottom two stages, and will support the fast & long slide on the crossbar of the H. We also think that we will mechanically link the two uprights of the H to keep them in synch and avoid having to use up a 2nd control channel to control the 2nd slide (that is supposed to do exactly what the 1st upright is doing).

Any suggestions? Like I wrote above, we are looking mostly for vendor/product suggestions (boring), not for alternative solutions (more fun) - sorry about that

Blake