Sourcing the Rails

 

Introduction

 

Goal

 I tried do create a overview of trustworthy and good rail suppliers here. Simply because I want to create a short overview about the market before I will make a decision for my new build. The below list does not cover all manufacturers or brands. Let me know if you know more or if you can provide input to the manufacturers on the list of the end of this page. I will extend the list and I will update the page if I have more learnings.

 

Online Store Brands

Some of the trustworthy online store have there own rail bands. I have no idea how many we have on the globe and I have no overview about the complete market. So I will keep that section short. Please ask people who own them already before you buy.

Pros  

• Available in many online shops
• Usually many reports in the voron discord in the origin country of the shop 
• Support the comunity
  

Cons

• ?
  

HiWin

HiWin is a Chinese company and well known in the industry. Some reports say that HiWin holds 70% of the world wide linear rail market. HiWin offers a wide range of linear rails and have a good quality. It seems that there are clones on the market or they sell poor quality to the CN market which got sold to EU via some channels, unfortunately. I would recommend to buy them locally where you can discuss problems with a local seller.

Pros  

• Very well known
• Medium price/quality ratio
  

Cons

• It seems that there are clones or bad quality sets around

CPC

 CPC is a company from Taiwan. The rails from them are in the medium price segment.

 

Pros  

• Available in many online shops
• Good quality for the price
• Very well known in the Voron community
• Extra lubrication reservoir one some models
  

Cons

• Not as good available as HiWIN
  

Robotrigg

Robotrigg is a company from China. They are well known in the maker community, not only for there Rails. They supply you with almost everything a maker needs. The rails from them are in the low to medium price segment.

 Pros  

• Available in many online shops
• Good quality for the price (see cons)
  
• Very well known in the Voron community

Cons

• Not as good available as HiWIN
• Some reported bad to very bad quality, others are more than happy
  

 

IKO

IKO is one of the leading companies when you search for high precision linear movement solution. You can find them in robots in surgery rooms as well as in other sensitive operations

Pros  

• High precision
• Live time Lubrication system available
  
• A fair amount of 3D printers builder use them and are more than happy
  

Cons

• Hard do source
• Sometimes very long backorder times at the moment
• Pricy, you must calculate with more than 150€ for a 40cm rail with wagon
  

Schneeberger

Schneeberger is a company from Switzerland and well known as top notch in that segment. Available in all sizes and length which we need. To keep it short: The gold standard. But gold comes with a price...

 

Pros  

• The gold standard on the linear movement market
  
• High precision
• Live time lubrication system available
• A fair amount of 3D printers builder use them and are more than happy

Cons

• Hard to source
• Pricy, a 400mm rail is about 200€+
  

Descission

 I decided to extended my budget a lot and went for:

Z = CBC

Wagon: MR 09  (N,  VS)
Rail MR9MK (P)

Y  = IKO

Wagon: MLG9C1T1HS2
Rail: LWL9R350BHS2 

X = Schneeberger:
            Rail: MN 09-0400-10-10-G1-V1
            Wagon: MNNL 09-G1-LUBE-S

I own a Schneeberger in my 250build already, I'm so happy that I want that rail for my new build to. But if I go in X for something like Schneeberger I need to tackle the fact that I can not try to go budget wise on the other rails. I found a fair compromise for me and my budget. The highest precession must be on X, Y is second and Z is last.

I would recommend to by at least CBC for X and continue with other brands like HiWin or the own brand of some Voron stores.

We have seen that the rails fermio are very nice rails, at least for Z. 

The even movement of the axes is something which will have a lot of impact to your print quality, do yourself and your printer a favour and stay away from budget rails from some copy cats on ali.

More possible suppliers:

I found some more possible vendor names but I have not found any trustworthy information about there products nor whether they  produce tails in the dimensions we need them.

• Baldor-Reliance
• SBC
• PBC Linear 
• Schaeffler
• Bosch Rexroth
• NSK
• THL