Hey Charlie,
Wow, this really sucks.
But this problem can only arise
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firstly if there is wood dust
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and secondly if the seal on the ball nut cannot cope with an excessive amount of the dust-oil mixture
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or if the seal on the ball nut comes off and the inside of the recirculating ball nut is exposed unprotected. Oviously the seal had peeled off as you wrote.
Basically when you mill wood, dust is created and it is an enemy of exposed, oil-lubricated mechanics. I would not run a machine like this without a powerful dust collection system (I think a workshop vacuum cleaner is only a temporary, less-than-ideal solution, but not the right one), not only to protect the mechanics, but also to protect yourself.
But now the mess is here and I don’t know, you put a lot of effort into cleaning everything. But I wonder if such a cleaning is not something technically very demanding.
If you say the ballscrew still hardly turns, at least I would throw away the ball nut if not the whole ball screw.
One ballnut can operate just fine despite missing a couple of balls missing, but
to maintain their inherent accuracy and ensure long life, great care is needed to avoid contamination with dirt and abrasive particles.
I think so. But since you don’t want it to happen again, I think maybe you could look at 1. and 2. mentioned above. (the repeated occurrence of 3. seems to be inherent to the machine)
PS: Note: Nice picture of how the ball nut is sealed