Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Swedging Your Rotors


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Posted by Jim Andrada on June 01, 2002 at 14:43:38:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Swedging Your Rotors posted by Chuck(G) on June 01, 2002 at 11:13:03:

If they were big enough to be used on a bike I think they were the bearings that were used on the disk stack itself. The ones I was thinking of were really small and were used to guide the read/write head. Actually, these days I'm involved with tape drives and we're using some built up guide roller assemblies that are around 1/2" in diameter, can spin at peak rates up to 10,000 RPM for many years, and have runout characteristics that are awe-inspiring - in the vicinity of a very few microns.

So I think the basic point here is that there is really outstanding technology available such that there's no reason a set of rotary valves couldn't be built to last and function perfectly for 100 plus years. It's all a matter of cost, I think. Of course, one key to all this is proper lubrication. As well as the kind of manufacturing process one would need to assure proper alignment of shafts etc. As well as finding some way to get a good engineer sufficiently motivated by such a mundane problem.

So an interesting question arises from all this - ie how much real MECHANICAL ENGINEERING (as opposed to cut and fit and keep doing what's been done for a lot of years) goes into a tuba. I suspect very little in most cases.

By the way, the oilite bronze sleeve bearings are what I think I have on my Hegner scroll saw.


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