Designing a "belt + roller" conveyor for balls

[mott]

Originally Posted by Scott Kozutsky

In 2014 we used the polycarb tube for our rollers and it definitely suffered from a lack of rigidity. The aluminum upgrade is definitely something I would recommend. Our tubes were around 2ft+ long.

Other than the added complexity of machining the bore of the tube ends, would it be worth using the 1.25" OD polycarb tubing with the 1" ID and then machining the bore of the tube ends to accept the 1.125" bearing and hub? Besides being significantly stiffer, this would also allow you to intentionally undersize the bore to get the amount of "press fit" you might want for the inserts.