Threaded Drive

Screws vs Belts

You are welcome to do what you want, but that is a different technology all together and not part of a reduced construction set. The Universal was intended as a 3 axis machine with Prusa bed configuration (moving bed). That is no good for real industrial productivity. If you are interested in a real production machine, you need to get away from a moving bed and go to a frame with gantry like D3D Pro. On a prusa style printer, once you get about 6-8" tall, you can't print any more because the thing wobbles too much. So you would not be able to print tubing or plastic lumber. We are moving up to 3 meter tall machines - so the Universal geometry is not applicable there. The other disadvantage of threaded spindle is they are not scalable linearly in cost, so it will get expensive for larger machines, and you cannot use 4 of them on larger machines because they bind up if they are not perfectly lined up. So it's a more difficult technology to work with.