Thanks Gerald for clearing this up.

Homemade V-Tyre with circlip
 

Hi Gerald,

I am looking at making my own V-Tyres like you did.
On the first picture of this thread you show your own design with a flange, but the drawing M1 20 121 it looks like the flange is on both sides. Is this correct?

I was wondering if it is possible to make the tyre in such a way that your bearings are pushed in from one side up against a collar which is part of the one side flange. The other side I cut a small groove in for a circlip to keep the bearings in place.

From the forum I gather that one of your first MM are still running on UnHardend tyres. Is this correct?

The design was since modified to be fully interchangeable the "Size 3" produced by Hepco, Superior, YiTong, BWC, etc. The V was moved to the center and the diameter slightly increased.

From this post, you can see that you only have 2mm clearance on the one side - a 1mm collar will work for that side. On the other side there is a lot of space - easy to fit circlip there. You can make a bigger collar if you move the bearings slightly off center.

With the "re-Loctiting" of the wheels, I lost track of which wheels were where. The whole hard/soft wheel thing has become a non-issue for me. Next week we can have a closer look at the wheels.

Thanks for that. So if I make the copmlete wheel a little WIDER, it will not catch on anything. At the moment it is 16mm wide. If I increase it to say 19mm wide, will it pose a problem....thinking about Y and Z axis as well.

Just to make 100% sure...all the wheels needed are the same size...46mm OD....X, Y and Z axis.

Making the wheel 3mm fatter (1.5mm per side) will chew up the 2mm clearance left for other inaccuracies during the gantry welding. Rather move the bearings off-center if you are re-designing the wheel for shoulder and circlip:

Attachment 830

All the wheels are the same size. The mod mentioned above will have a tiny effect on the z-axis (mounting the eccentrics).

Can one use VESCONITE in place of the bearings.

See ... http://www.vesconite.com/industry/ap...wheel_bush.htm

No, a plastic bush will always be a bit flexible side to side, given that our wheel is only 16mm wide.

I have some spare "tyres", as per the pics right at the top - want to make me an offer via PM or mail?

Ok speak to you FACE to FACE tomorrow afternoon 14:00?

What to do when one gets bored ?
 

Since there were no action over the last 3 days let me put some pic`s on the forum !:)
I tried it and got it right!
My interpretation of turning v rollers

You took that first pic at 6.44am on a Sunday?? Did the missus make you sleep in the garage again?? :D

That wheel will give you lots of good service. (havn't worn out our mild steel experimental wheel yet - it is on a y-car)

That mandrel you used in the lathe chuck is exactly the right way to get the V-groove true to the bore!

GERALD
I WANT TO MAKE THIS V WHEELS WHERE DO I BUT THE TYRES AND BEARING CAN YOU GIVE ME THE SITES AND ALL THE SPEC
JSLINGERLAND@ROCHESTER.RR.COM

Slink , get the laser company to cut some steel for the wheels 1.5 mm over size and use the std bearings as per the spec`s that Gerald gave in his drawings.Bearings you can get from any bearing supplier.Get some extra wheels to play with.

. . . . . . I am using Ertalite wheels. They are a bit softer that the steel. . . . .

Curious about the life of those Ertalyte wheels - sometimes I wonder if we can dump the wheels and replace them with solid plastic slide blocks, still on the v-rail, (like a lathe bed) . . . . .

Gerald, So you picked up on the spelling. I sometimes do that:). Personally I would not give up on the wheels. The added friction that the slide block give will not be practical especially on larger machines. What I would look at is to increase the contact area. I am looking at designing an extrustion that will give about 10mm contact area on each side.
I am monitoring the Ertalyte wheels closely to see how they hold up. So far not a sign of wear. Also the machine runs very quite so it will be a bonus if they last.

Ertalyte wheels
 

Gerald,
The machine has been working non-stop for many weeks now and the ertalyte wheels dont show any signs of decay yet. They have not yet bedded and I think it might be a good alternative. The machine noise is also very low. Kobus came round the other day and commented on the low noise level so I take it must be a lot better than the metal wheels.

Marius, that is great news on the Ertalyte wheels.

Kobus's machine has direct drive motors, which makes a machine sound quite rough. I guess his comment was based on this aspect. I don't think that steel/plastic wheels will make a big difference on noise, but I may still be proved wrong. :-)

Gerald has anyone tried using brass for the wheels? Think it would work?

Brass (or bronze) will also work.

Then that is what I will be using... I have a nice bar just the right size for this :)

Gerald,
I cant believe a years has gone already since we started our build. Just to give feedback - the ertalyte wheels still look the same as when installed. The machine has worked hard almost every day of the year. So I think any of the synthetic stuff that has similar properties might work well.

Regards
Marius

Thanks for the update Marius.

Gerald, is the bronze suggestion still valid? I want to try my luck at doing the V wheels with my small cnc lathe.

Yes, it is still valid

I don't know if anyone is still around to read this but the Ertalyte wheels are still going strong on the machine. Almost 15 years later.

Hi Marius

That is good to know, thank you for the feedback. Where did you source the Ertalyte?

Hi Allan
From our local supplier called Maizey Plastics.
I am building myself another machine now so I will go the same route with the wheels.