[TowerTalk] FW: FW: Thrust Bearing Installation

[Charles Gallo]

Every time this topic comes up, I alway think about “why are we doing this”?
“Thrust bearings” (agree, most are used as a second axial load bearing, not thrust) in ham applications are, frankly low rotational speed, low rotational duty application.
Always makes me think of the lessons learned when shipping cars by train (fretting caused by vibration during non rotational times)
Frankly, what we have is the perfect place for solid bearings. In the old days, bronze, today, plastic
I think a T shaped bearing, made of say a filled nylon, or filled acetal would deal with 99% of the issues (never mind torlon/rulon etc). Industry has gone to plastic bearings for low speed/low duty/ high load bearings for a reason.

I don’t know how the Yaesu “thrust bearing” is made, but rotating one by hand, they FEEL like plastic



--  
73 de KG2V
Charlie

> On Dec 27, 2020, at 12:02 PM, Grant Saviers <grants2 at pacbell.net> wrote:
> 
> Matt,
> 
> Got the image, thanks and nice work.  Very informative about some of the issues.  The three bearing study would also help settle a lot of debates.  Were real bearing models developed?  The design that was developed for radial float (done in some machine tooling to float reamers) of the rotator would be interesting.