Where to find linear rods (EU)

Hi,

I'm getting everything together, and I'm trying to get a nice quality/price balance for all my stuff. It was hard to find the electronics as cheap as possible in the EU (shipping and taxes from USA), but still keeping quality ok. That worked already.

I'm totally locked with the rods now. I can't seem to find a good supplier here in EU. I read in another topic: [forums.reprap.org] that CF53 would be the best rods for linear bearings? I looked up alieexpress to, because that's almost always free shipping, but they are all gcr15, wich I don't know if they are good enough for linear bearings. The CF53 I found until now are super exspensive, while in the above thread I read that you could get them at industrial prices for 4€/meter. I would be even ok with 10€/m, But 70€ + 30€ shipping for 2 8mm 1 meter rods and 1 12mm 1 meter rod is a bit above my budget.

I would keep the price around 50€ all in, for 2x 8mm 1m and 1x 12mm 1m

Anybody know a good supplier in the UK, Netherlands,.....?

Thanks in advance!
Andreas

Search "Linear Bearings". There are suppliers in Japan, China and Germany that sell bearings and matching rods.

I've got good experiences with WorldofCNC located in the UK. Not sure about the price but the quality is good.

[www.worldofcnc.com]

Free shipping often gets more expensive, when you have to pay tax and customs later. Because tax is calculated on the parts price ( Which often includes the "free shipping" )

You better buy a 20$ part with 20$ shipping, than the same part for 40$ and free shipping. Especially, when you can stay below 20€ for the parts, you don´t pay anything for customs. Also you don´t have to pick the parcel up from customs and get it delivered to your home. Sometimes I split my shopping basket in two parcels, only to stay below 20€ each.

-Olaf

Quote
o_lampe
Free shipping often gets more expensive, when you have to pay tax and customs later. Because tax is calculated on the parts price ( Which often includes the "free shipping" )

You better buy a 20$ part with 20$ shipping, than the same part for 40$ and free shipping. Especially, when you can stay below 20€ for the parts, you don´t pay anything for customs. Also you don´t have to pick the parcel up from customs and get it delivered to your home. Sometimes I split my shopping basket in two parcels, only to stay below 20€ each.

-Olaf

I do that too, I would surely want to keep it under 20€ per parcel, I know that from customs lol
But I don't know is these 5$ for 2 rod kits from china are good for linear bearings, hard enough etc...

Dold-Mechatronik has excellent prices. If you don't speak German figure out what you want with google translate and then send them an email asking for a quote in English. I've found their customer service to be excellent. Their rods are GCr15 though but they seem tough enough to me.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2015 10:25AM by asbo.

Thanks ! I really don't know what to take from hardness. All the Ebay rods tend to be GCr15 too. You use them with linear bearings? It's quiet and smooth? The price from them would be 42€, what is acceptable, if they work.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2015 10:50AM by Andreas15.

Well I'm using them with cheap LM8UU bearings from china, instead of the LME8UU ones which dold sell. I think the E is for Europe and the ones without are an international version. So I don't know if the E ones are better, they are slightly bigger.
They seem fine so far but the CoreXY I'm building them with isn't finished so they've only been slid up and down by hand. I have done this repeatedly to check for any binding, grinding etc. and they make the expected harden steel on harden steel sliding noise. Definitely noisier than the plastic wheels on aluminium profile system which my delta uses, but I'm sure the sounds the stepper motors make will drown it out. All that being said, any noise and problems I may have will almost certainly come from the cheap bearings rather than the rods.

Maybe oiling the shaft a bit can fix the sound to?

[www.zappautomation.co.uk]

Both the rods and bearings come slightly lubricated and I think adding more might risk gunging them up.
I don't know whether it applies to 3d printers but in the CNCing world we have to careful sawdust, chips etc don't mix with lubricants and clog things up. There won't be any sawdust in the printer but maybe common household dust might cause problems if there's more than enough lubricant?