We are a manufacturer of linear guides. As a manufacturer, today we would like to share with you the precautions to be taken in the installation and maintenance of linear guides to achieve better results.

The guide rail used as a guide is made of quenched steel, which is finely ground and placed on the installation plane. Compared with planar guides, the geometric shape of the cross-section of a linear guide is more complex. The reason for the complexity is that grooves need to be machined on the guide to facilitate the movement of sliding components. The shape and number of grooves depend on the function that the machine tool needs to complete. For example, a guide rail system that can withstand both linear forces and overturning moments is significantly different in design compared to a guide rail that only supports linear forces.

The basic function of the fixed component (guide rail) of the linear guide rail system is like a bearing ring, a bracket for installing steel balls, with a shape of "v". The bracket wraps around the top and two sides of the guide rail. In order to support the working components of the machine tool, a set of linear guides has at least four brackets. Used to support large working components, the number of brackets can be more than four.

When the working components of the machine tool move, the steel balls circulate in the grooves of the bracket, distributing the wear of the bracket to each steel ball, thereby extending the service life of the linear guide rail. In order to eliminate the gap between the bracket and the guide rail, preloading can improve the stability of the guide rail system. The acquisition of preloading involves installing oversized steel balls between the guide rail and bracket. The diameter tolerance of the steel ball is ± 20 microns. In increments of 0.5 microns, the steel balls are sorted and installed on the guide rails. The size of the pre applied load depends on the force acting on the steel ball. If the force acting on the steel ball is too large and the preloading time is too long, resulting in increased resistance to the movement of the bracket, there will be a problem of balance effect; In order to improve the sensitivity of the system and reduce motion resistance, it is necessary to reduce the preload accordingly. However, in order to improve motion accuracy and accuracy retention, sufficient preload negatives are required, which are two contradictory aspects.

If the working time is too long, the steel ball begins to wear out, and the preload acting on the steel ball begins to weaken, resulting in a decrease in the motion accuracy of the machine tool's working components. If you want to maintain initial accuracy, you must replace the guide rail bracket, or even replace the guide rail. If the guide rail system already has a preloading effect. The system accuracy has been lost, the only way is to replace the rolling elements.

The design of the guide rail system aims to have the maximum contact area between fixed and moving components. This not only improves the system's load-bearing capacity, but also allows the system to withstand the impact force generated by intermittent or gravity cutting, spreading the force widely and expanding the load-bearing area. To achieve this, there are various groove shapes in the guide rail system, with two representative ones. One is called the Gothic (pointed arch) shape, which is an extension of a semicircle and the contact point is the vertex; Another type is circular arc, which can also have the same effect. Regardless of the structural form, there is only one purpose, striving for more rolling steel ball radius to contact the guide rail (fixed components). The factor that determines the performance characteristics of a system is how the rolling elements come into contact with the guide rail, which is the key issue.