Wide flanged pulleys made from flanged ball bearings

In The Spice Must Flow sand table's corexy mechanism I used some of the typical 3D printer type flanged pulleys that have teeny-tiny bearings. I don't trust them to last long in the sand table- it moves fast over long runs. I decided that I need to use larger ball bearings that will probably be lower friction, run quieter, and last longer, but the flanges on flanged bearings are very small and not good for long belts runs (almost 2m in The Spice Must Flow). This is what I came up with:



The green flanges and red center tube are all printed (and very quickly, too). I made a test part to fit some F608zz bearings I had left over from UMMD. A full test under load will ultimately determine if the plastic flanges will last, but based on the way it feels, I think it will be fine. The plastic flanges use up 1.2 mm of the space for the belt, so you have to choose appropriate sized bearings, but the flanges can be made as large diameter as needed. I printed the test part in PETG because that was already loaded on the printer and find that I am unable to break the flanges with my hands.





You could use just the flanges without the central tube, but then you'd probably have to use epoxy or superglue to hold the flanges on the bearings. The printed parts including the center tube won't require any glue. I don't know if I'd trust the center tube to be a good enough surface for accurate, high resolution 3D printing, but in a sand table it will be just fine.

More here...

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/15/2019 03:14PM by the_digital_dentist.

---

Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]