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#1
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Thunderhex and Thunderhex Bearings
Has anyone else seen fitment issues with the Thunderhex and the Thunderhex bearings after you tapped the end of the shaft. Another mentor brought this to my attention. The thought is the end of the Thunderhex shaft is deforming out when tapped which causes issues in trying to install it into the Thunderhex bearing. The mentor plans to try Hex bearings, but I think he will have the same issue.
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#2
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Re: Thunderhex and Thunderhex Bearings
Take the Thunderhex and clamp it in a drill. Then take sand paper and wrap it around the Thunderhex. Spin the Thunderhex while moving the sand paper up and down it. It will wear away the paint on the rounded edges making it easier to fit in the bearing.
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#3
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Re: Thunderhex and Thunderhex Bearings
I did notice last week that one of our shafts was a little harder to get in the bearing than I expected, and we had tapped that end of the shaft. It still fit, though, so I didn't really think much of it.
Try taking a file to the end of the shaft. Maybe there's a small burr there from cutting the shaft? |
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#4
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Re: Thunderhex and Thunderhex Bearings
This warning is in red on the thunderhex page itself
Note: Due to a manufacturing variance, our current inventory is slightly out of tolerance. The diameter of our ThunderHex Stock is oversized by (on average) 0.0003". This results in a press-fit into ThunderHex round bearings. Users who need a looser fit should gently sand the rounded corners of the hex. |
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#5
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Re: Thunderhex and Thunderhex Bearings
Quote:
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#6
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Re: Thunderhex and Thunderhex Bearings
Our team has always had issues with the thunderhex being oversize enough where bearings, sprockets, ect won't slide on easily. As others have said, take some sand paper and put it in a drill to remove some of the paint. This usually lakes care of it, but sometimes you have to file down the actual sides.
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#7
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Re: Thunderhex and Thunderhex Bearings
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#8
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Re: Thunderhex and Thunderhex Bearings
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Anyhow, for us it's now a standard practice to take some emory cloth and shaft stock and run it on the lathe for a second or two before fitting into bearings. Just enough to strip the anodize layer off should do it. (We also use the "tight press" bearings because they are so cheap in 11-packs) ThunderHex is way, way, way better than regular hex. I'll never go back to regular hex bearings - they are a pain to fit, a pain to align, and they are far harder to fix the shaft for if they fit too tightly. |
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#9
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Re: Thunderhex and Thunderhex Bearings
Quote:
Thanks for the feedback. I'm leaning this way myself. Hearing confirmation from others is re-assuring. |
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#10
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Re: Thunderhex and Thunderhex Bearings
I have used shrinking to fit thunderhex into bearings before. I used liquid nitrogen(-320 F) to do it, but dry ice(-109 F) should do just fine and a lot of grocery stores carry it.
Aluminum shrinks/expands ~0.001"-0.0015" per inch per 100 degrees F, which you can get about 1 thou shrink with dry ice or about 2 with liquid nitrogen. |
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#11
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Re: Thunderhex and Thunderhex Bearings
I'm assuming the removed burrs, but will check tonight and will have them try sanding them down. Some of the shafts are long, so we will probably clamp in our lathe and run some emery cloth on them.
Thanks! |
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#12
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Re: Thunderhex and Thunderhex Bearings
Because of these issues our team has stopped using thunderhex as axles, only using leftover materials as cool-looking standoffs.
Last year was thunderhex hell for our team Last edited by BumblingBuilder : 06-02-2017 at 10:31. |
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#13
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Re: Thunderhex and Thunderhex Bearings
Have you found another option when using hex shaft? We bought some from McMaster-Carr last year and had issues with the tolerance on it vs. the tolerance of the Hex Bearings and had an extremely difficult time installing the shafts on our climber. So we decided to go with the Thunderhex this year.
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#14
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Re: Thunderhex and Thunderhex Bearings
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It could even just be our wheels too. I've been too busy with other parts of the robot to address the seemingly trivial problem that is axle size. We're just happy we didn't need to slice of faces of the shaft on a mill this year We also get hex shaft from a local metals warehouse, Discount Steel. They may or may not ship to your area... but if you have a local metals warehouse I'd imagine they would have hex shaft. If you do have a shop nearby bring hex bearings and test them on the shafts before you buy them Last edited by BumblingBuilder : 06-02-2017 at 12:41. |
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#15
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Re: Thunderhex and Thunderhex Bearings
Quote:
Thanks! |
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