PRS Z or spindle

[loriny]

I am thinking of adding a drill on a second Z. Would I be better off buying a PRT style off the forum and saving some money which would allow my to upgrade to a spindle(2.2 HSD or something off ebay) or add an upgraded z axis and run my router on it for now. I think if I want to go up to 1/4" bits my router is underpowered.
Thanks for any advice
Lorin

[ken_rychlik]

Lorin, I had a prt and sold it when I bought a prs. Routers on both, so i can't give spindle advice. I don't see why your router won't pull a 1/4 inch bit, unless it is going bad on you.

The z on the prs is much better than the prt. The z gets worse in a prt with age as the rails wear down. Hardened rails are very good. I wonder if you could add hardened rails to your current slide.

I don't think switching it to a prs z would make your machine all that much better though. The reason is that I believe the gantry flex is most of the acuracy issues on the prt.

For that same reason, I would hate to add dual Z's to a prt because of the weight. That extra weight would make the slight flexing in the gantry worse.

You could brace it up and get away from some of those issues.

Take care

Kenneth

[loriny]

The router cuts fine but I notice it lugs down quite a bit when cutting just about full depth minus skin pass in 5/8 and 3/4 material. This is with 5mm compression. My current Z seems quite good as it is because it has the 8 v rollers instead of 4. I just like the idea of a drill so I could cut with a slightly bigger bit and avoid tool changes.
Lorin

[ken_rychlik]

I think just an air drill would fix you up.

I use 1/4 inch shelf pins and run with one bit.

Kenneth

[loriny]

might be simpler and would be lighter. I should search the forum some more as I remember seeing where they have been built to go on PRTs.
Lorin