Yeah I wished I'd initially bought more bearings.
For anyone contemplating a build that uses skate bearings, do yourself a favor and get more than you need - I think a package of 100 would have cost me maybe $10 or $15 more than I was paying for 30, and I should have done it.
Also CarveOne - depending on where you have the idler bearing, you may not need any flanges. Without pulling out the plans for your machine and just thinking of mine - even when the belt is running in the horizontal orientation and has gravity pulling on it, the pulleys which are under load do have flanges and they serve to do the alignment, so you don't need the idler bearing to have flanges as long as it's wide enough to support the belt in the range of positions it could be.
Hope that makes sense. You can get a better idea of this if you look at Coogrrr's videos where he shows his idler pulleys (both by using extra pulleys and by using just bearings). Or I can try to take a picture tomorrow if you still have questions.  |