Does anybody know how or where to get a lazy susan bearing with an inner diameter large enough to fit the orbit balls in with some space to spare?
The KoP’s lazy susan bearing is much too small, and I don’t think cutting it would be a good idea because so much of it will have to be cut away. Online, the most I found was a 16" diameter lazy susan, which is kind of big, and the cross section is like a rectangle, so I doubt it would be good for our application of it.
What I was thinking was making a custom bearing, but I have no idea where to start in designing and fabricating one:confused: . I thought about using some wood to make two platters with a circular channel for the ball bearings, but I don’t know how to keep them together so the bearings don’t fall out.
search mcmaster for turntable. We just bought some from there made from cast aluminum that are awesome. I believe its a 10.5" inner opening and they cost $30
We thought about this problem for a long time before we came up with a good way to do it. A turret needs two things to work well: a good support base, and a means of transmitting power to it (for turning). Unfortunately, turntables and big sprockets are expensive and need to be ordered. We also don’t have access to any lathe big enough to make round parts that big…
Eventually we came up with this solution: a v-belt pulley for an evaporative cooler with the hub cut out and supported by bearings on the outside. This set up has the neat feature of having only one round part; the power and support are both provided by the pulley. The best part is that you can get one at the local hardware store (in AZ) and it only costs about $30.
Note: the bearing in the picture is going to change to a normal ball bearing… we didn’t have one the right size at the time of building it, so we just faked it with what we had on hand.
The one in the kit could be cut open to fit a ball through. That’s our backup plan…and the same one is available at our local Ace hardware store for about $12 in case we mess it up.
We made our own turret bearing…not sure how it’ll work out, but in early testing it seems to work.
In 2006, team 696 made their own custom 4 point contact turret bearing. It was made from lasercut 1/4" thick aluminum plates, with 45 degree angles milled into their edges where the balls rode. There were 4 plates: inner and outer, and upper and lower of each. The balls were not held in any race, but were alternating steel and delrin. It worked very well. It was very smooth, had no slop, and was able to handle a great deal of load. Lots of work to make though.
