For those of you new to linear rails… (Like myslf before this evening) Don’t try to take the slider off the rail. As it turns out there are many small ball bearings in the slide that will go everywhere and putting them back together is no easy task.
I’ve learned something similar the hard way, too!
Just be happy you didn’t take apart a ball screw.
shudders
@Nick_Parker you’ve done that too? Now there’s a thing you only do once. The bearings! So many bearings!
The fancy ones have caged balls (while allowing much higher acceleration).
There’s a carrier insert that keeps the balls in when it’s installed. If you print a short replica of the rail, you can slide the bearing off and keep the balls in until reinstallation.
By the time I finished putting my mill together I was an expert at repacking balls screws 