hard drive bearings?

[Steven Dick]

Maybe I'm the only silly one here who collects and takes apart old hard drives, but has anyone considered using the bearings inside the hard drives for clock mechanisms?

Typically, the spindle bearings are too embedded in the spindle motor to extract, but sometimes the head bearings actually fall out when unscrewed; other times, the plastic is actually injected into the head assembly with the bearing in place, and you'd probably have to dremel it out or something.

However, if you can manage to extract the head bearings, you've got a very smooth moving inner and outer cylinder.  Unfortunately, probably no two models use the exact same size bearings, but it might still be easy to parametrize that....

I've also considered using the spindle motor to drive the clock instead of an escapement.
You'd probably have to build a custom controller, however....but you'd end up with all those pretty gears and then a very precise motor running it all, you could even ntp synchronize it.  :)

[Mathieu Glachant]

Good idea! Old optical drives might work too...

[Matt Griffin]

With an eye to making the clock easy for anyone to make, what about hunting on newegg for really cheap cd/dvd optical drives that can easily be mined. 

Some are as cheap as about $15 or below. I'll be happy to purchase and teardown a pair of the cheapest if the hardware would be an advantage off of other off-the-shelf hardware!

Thanks,

Matt

Sent from the sky, rain from a data cloud.

[Steven Dick]

On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 8:29 AM, Matt Griffin <gri...@makerbot.com> wrote:

Some [optical drives] are as cheap as about $15 or below.

I hadn't thought of buying the bearings directly, but I think roller skate bearings are $3 in quantities of one, maybe it would be worth first looking for a cheap source of smaller bearings too, rather than buying drives to tear apart? 

[Mathieu Glachant]

$15 a pop does seem rather high... And I think concentric metal tubes will probably be sufficient after some further testing and tweaking. Bought by the foot and cut to size, they'd probably cost a few cents each.

Afterall, that's how most clocks do it, when they don't use precious stones for low friction / low wear contact points. ;-)

On Friday, February 3, 2012, Steven Dick <kg4...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>

[ruste...@prototribe.net]

I've ordered off www.vxb.com a number of times. They have a great selection of bearings, but aren't always the cheapest.

[Tom Igoe]

http://www.fivestrideskateshop.com/ in Queens will have roller skate bearings

t/

[Benjamin Fraser]

Last week I got a bunch of 3mm ID x 6mm OD bearings. I also have a whole bunch of skate bearings, but the OD os much too big for most pinions. I have some more bearings (I seem to have a soft spot for ball bearings) coming today. They are 5mm ID and 8mm OD.

They were all ordered from www.vxb.com and were all roughly $1.50 ea.

[bre pettis]

We will have lots of bearings on hand tomorrow!

Bre

--
MakerBot Industries
http://makerbot.com
Video - Time Magazine Game Changer: http://ti.me/nGtIrJ
Print - NYTimes: http://nyti.ms/oKITfc

NOTICE: This email may contain information that is confidential or
attorney-client privileged and may constitute inside information. The
contents of this email are intended only for the recipient(s) listed above.
If you are not the intended recipient, you are directed not to read,
disclose, distribute or otherwise use this transmission. If you have
received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately and
delete the transmission. Delivery of this message is not intended to waive
any applicable privileges.

[Benjamin Fraser]

Yeah, I'm hoping to rebuild the clock later today on 5mm rod instead of the 3mm I was using. It was deflecting a LOT on the 3mm version. See you tomorrow!

[Mathieu Glachant]

Excellent news! Can you bring both versions of the clock tomorrow? That would give us two test beds to play with. :-)