DIY grooved bearings

Bearings/Motors/Belts/Gears/Etc.

Re: DIY grooved bearings

Postby LeonS » Mon Jun 14, 2010 12:53 pm

Hello All,

I am still around and lurking. I am about ready to re-purpose my Chinese 40 watt laser into a DIY Laser based on the great work all of you have been doing. I will probably be asking for advice in the near future.

Anyway back to the subject of this thread.....

I saw an interesting possibility for cheap V-groove bearings on another forum. Actually, it would be a work-alike for V-groove bearings.

You merely take two skate bearings and stack them with an appropriate size washer (thickness and diameter) between them and bolt them to your device that you want to slide. The trick is to rely on the slightly round edges of the outer cylinder of the bearings to rest easily on the V extrusion. The washer separating the bearings should be small enough in diameter to not touch the "V". The distance beteen the contact points is determined by the washer thickness. This option would clearly be less engineered then the dual bearing with offset contacts that Bart described, but it might work fine for the light weight stress of a DIY Laser. The cost would be under $2 a pop.

The other option discussed earlier of mimicking the bearings in cheap Chinese lasers with little simple bearings identified in the Lasersafe's previous post is also seems viable. It would necessitate using a rail with a grove on each side. This would be pretty inexpensive too.

Do you think either of these options might work adequately?

Regards to all,
Leon
LeonS
 
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Re: DIY grooved bearings

Postby bdring » Mon Jun 14, 2010 1:42 pm

FYI: I think that dual bearing idea is here.

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=157#p890

Note: I now have a Chinese source to get the good dual v bearings in the mid $3.00 range (but, postage adds a lot). I have a sample coming soon + about 90 pieces on order. I plan on selling a complete bearing kit which will include (9) v-groove bearings, (18) 8mm bearings for the z lift and (4) 1/4" bearings for the timing pulleys for about $90. It will take about 4 weeks to get though :cry:
Bart
"If you didn't build it, you will never own it."
bdring
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Re: DIY grooved bearings

Postby LeonS » Mon Jun 14, 2010 2:15 pm

Bart,

Quite right. I read posts to this forum via RSS feeds. I have them grouped with other CNC and laser forums. I get confused pretty easily as you can see. :?

Your idea still seems like a inspired to me. I also think mimicking the Chinese laser approach could work and you would not only use cheap bearings but you may save some money by not requiring the V rail. Probably, not significant in the big picture of building and calibrating a laser engraver. I am a software guy and not a hardware engineer, so evaluating these options is not in my "comfort" zone.

Regards,
Leon
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