Alternatives for tube insert nuts?

Technical
1

Hi. As the title says I am wondering if teams use any cots items that can be used instead of round tube insert nuts.

My reasons for the search:

  • Looks like they don’t exist in our country.
  • Threaded aluminum spacers are sometimes not rigid enough for some applications, therefore an aluminum round tube is sometimes needed.
  • We don’t want to overwhelm our machining sponsors with threaded endcaps as much as possible.

Any help is appreciated.

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Would you mind specifying your use case a bit further? It sounds like you’re just looking for end caps for 1x1 and 2x1 tubing that is tapped?

Would you be looking for these kinds of products for metric tubing and hardware?

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I was talking about round tubing. Maybe my language was not specific enough, my bad. :man_facepalming:

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Do you want this kind of thing?

image

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Yes, i am asking for an alternative of this.

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You can turn a plug on a lathe, thread it, and glue it in place

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For those of us who don’t really know - what are the typical vendors you go to in Turkye for hardware like this?

@Chadfrom7226 they’re looking for COTs stuff that doesn’t need to be machined.

If you can’t find something, for some applications you could print plugs and use heat set threaded inserts.

Hopefully you do have a lathe in your shop though, its a simple part to turn in-house and not at a sponsors shop.

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For some use cases you might be able to substitute AndyMark churro and hand-tap the ends

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This would be the same thing as what the OP is trying to avoid.

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That’s what I get for reading quickly lol

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It depends A LOT unfortunately. We don’t have a vendor anything like mcmaster-carr. It is mix of wandering around and searching a seller for the specific part online.

This may be a real good solution. We are just not sure how PLA would hold under load.

That would be nice. :smile:

If we can’t come up with another plan, we probably will try some printing this off-season.

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If you can get a countertop hobby lathe capable of turning aluminum for not too much money, it’s very worth it when you can’t have the real thing.

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Can you place orders with Rev? They started carrying tube nuts this season.

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Yes, we order from popular FRC vendors at least twice a year.

But we use the metric system, so our aluminum stock is all metric. Even if we find a similar inner size option, it wouldn’t be an ideal solution if we aim for sustainability i guess. Will keep it in mind as an overseas option for sure.

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They should work fine on a 16mm ID tube, is safely within the effective range. But I totally get that you would prefer a metric option, you’d have to mix in 10-32 bolts. And the shipping is less than ideal too.
I bet you’ll be able to find metric tube nuts on Alibaba, you may need to buy a lot of them though.

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Of note is that this style is also known as a “star nut” which may also be a useful search term if you haven’t tried that.

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Star nut is what they are called for bicycles and they are commonly used in the head tube of bikes using metric thread sizing. Have you considered trying a bike shop?

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Depending on the application 3D printing a holder for the nut is an option:

image
image811×466 103 KB

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No, but it makes sense. Thanks for the mention.

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