Disadvantages
Depending upon their lead angle, ball screws can be back-driven due to their low internal friction (i.e., the screw shaft can be driven linearly to rotate the ball nut). They are usually undesirable for hand-fed machine tools, as the stiffness of a servo motor is required to keep the cutter from grabbing the work and self feeding, that is, where the cutter and workpiece exceed the optimum feedrate and effectively jam or crash together, ruining the cutter and workpiece. Cost is also a major factor as Acme screws are cheaper to manufacture.
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