rolamite

[Erik Brinkman]

Originally Posted by Torque1st I feel a great many "Discoveries" are used for many years, maybe even centuries, before someone has the time available or "nothing else to do" and writes them up formally thereby taking credit for the "Discovery". That also brings up the subject of the many "Patents" that never should have been issued but that is another story...

The Director of the Patent office took it one directly
and it was issued in record time.
Even the Method Claim was approved, which is quite rare.

[Erik Brinkman]

Originally Posted by Mike Everman Mine is purely linear motion, but eliminates rolling friction as well. 4 out of 4, though for practical stiffness the banding is relatively thick, so losses are to be had just in hysteresis. Erik, I'm curious what practical application has been made with the scroller. I've been following your media releases since the beginning. I've been going through your report, and while it is a creative way to get this low friction rotary motion, I see no method of getting torque out that does not depend on an additional traction interface, or rolling bearings in the the planet rolls. The device as shown is 2/3 of a practical device. Can you point me to such? I am very interested in this, having spent no small amount of time the area myself.

The Scroller Booklet speaks of extracting torque from the device using either belting or shafts.

I think it is helpful to view the device as something shaft mounted between two machines
and not needing to be independently bearing mounted.

"scrollermechanics.com" has just been opened
and the scroller PDF booklet it available for download.
I think you will find it a helpful guide.

When the patent was applied for,
the Director of the Patent Office called me and wanted to take it on directly.

Once Business Week and AP published it, it got rather busy.
When it made the cover of American Machinist,
we got thousands of phone calls.

Everyone wanted a different application.
Bearing for petroleum Pipeline pumping stations in northern Canada
bearing on railcars in coal mines in China,
hinges for the Space Shuttle bay doors,
Conveyers in clean-rooms,
automobile power windows and seat,
twisting casings into oil wells,
the list was huge and every call was different.

.... There is a list of companies , industries and applications
on the "ScrollerMechanics.com" website.

We expected to a year to a year and a half after filing the patent
for the writing of the Scroller Report.
The patent was issued just a few weeks after filing.
We had not even issued the Scroller Report booklet
and so we had no easy way to discuss each application
in a way useful to them.

We expected the various companies and industries to take this principle and make their own products.

We simply did not have the means with which to even properly respond.
We cut the phone off after 2 weeks.

[handlewanker]

Hmmmmmm, 40 years + and still no practical everyday use for all the effort.

The main attarction is that it is "friction free", or practically so, and unless that aspect is the prime motive for applying it to a design, the rest of the complication with tensioned bands make it a bit too high tech for most everyday practical aplications.

It would almost appear that the Industry mechanicus has not realised the full potential of it's design and so no one is applying it to everyday use, unless someone is planning on dropping a few A bombs.

I agree that A bombs need to be reliable, but not in my backyard please, and the surplus market for A bomb spare parts is a long way off yet.

Getting down to earth, a number of everyday friction reducing applications spring to mind:-
Sliding door suspension systems.
Digital camera zoom lens slides.
Microscope slide focusing mechanism.
EDM electrode head carrier.
Drilling/milling machine quills.
Surface grinder/cyl grinder tables.
Auto pistol slides.
Drawer runners.
Rack and pinion steering.

The list could be endless, but in every day use unless the design makes prime use of the most valuable aspect, it's friction free property, it's just another way of sliding things.

BTW, my sliding drawer runners are plastic wheels running on steel channels either side and as they are very frictionless I couldn't imagine a kitchen furniture buyer wowing over the absolute smoothless of a drawer in the kitchen!
Ian.

[JD_Mortal]

Hmmm, who would have thought that you could re-patent a simple pulley, just by adding a wall for it to slide upon!

YouTube - Rolamite 1

You know where the CNC community uses this... In the gantry-stabilization for linear sliding. They are pulleys with a steel wire, mounted in a pair, in a "Z" pattern or an "X" pattern as an infinite loop. Again, the only thing missing is the wall-force, but it is still the same exact device.

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/diy-cn...ock_solid.html

This is also used on mountain-climbing rigs, and ski-boots, and pirate-ships... Another re-invented sliding-knot invention. (That is like getting a patent on a spork, even though forked-spoons have been around since cave-man days.)

There is even a CNC that uses these devices directly, with Kevlar bands.
YouTube - XYZ Linear Motion in 5 Minutes

One aspect that they didn't touch-on, is that you can fold a flat "O" ring around two tapered rollers forming a "U", and get perfect half-moon circular motion. (Use two long flat spirals or springs, and you have a perfectly linear rotation screw.)

One "key" that is relevant to us, is the use of LONG or WIDE rollers, and a non-spring guide. (The metal-band, which is the actual focus of the patent, is the holding or return device in the linear run.) With wide rollers, the roller axle will be nearly impossible to angle, due to being wrapped around a wide sheet of metal or a belt, and being held in place by the other roller of equal width. That will help with stabilizing long lengths which have a single drive on only one side. The belt or spring-metal can be tensioned, but must be fixed and set with a high load-tension. That load-tension will NOT translate into roller-friction, which was sort of the point of the patent. The tension could suck-up slack from wear and heat-stretching. Actually, high tension on the spring/belt results in less roller friction, as it forces/transfers that tension from the roller to the walls. The walls are absorbing all the stress.)

Pushing one roller moves all four equally. For us, with four mounted on a flat-plate, we would be pushing the plate with a screw and nut. The plate would hold another axis in the other direction, or it would hold a router. (Both plates, left and right, would be bridged by the router-plate. That would hold the plate perfectly linear in every direction, using only two rollers, four bearings, and the mounting plate.) The whole inner workings protected by the case which is also the supporting linear travel structure. Essentially, a "C" channel, "I" beam, or a square-tube with two slots for the axle/plate mounts to connect.

[LegendCJS]

Originally Posted by Erik Brinkman When the patent was applied for, the Director of the Patent Office called me and wanted to take it on directly. Once Business Week and AP published it, it got rather busy. When it made the cover of American Machinist, we got thousands of phone calls. Everyone wanted a different application. Bearing for petroleum Pipeline pumping stations in northern Canada bearing on railcars in coal mines in China, hinges for the Space Shuttle bay doors, Conveyers in clean-rooms, automobile power windows and seat, twisting casings into oil wells, the list was huge and every call was different. .... There is a list of companies , industries and applications on the "ScrollerMechanics.com" website. We expected to a year to a year and a half after filing the patent for the writing of the Scroller Report. The patent was issued just a few weeks after filing. We had not even issued the Scroller Report booklet and so we had no easy way to discuss each application in a way useful to them. We expected the various companies and industries to take this principle and make their own products. We simply did not have the means with which to even properly respond. We cut the phone off after 2 weeks.

Hi I know i'm bumping this thread after a long down time, but I just found it in a binge of rolamite research and I had a few questions and comments for anyone willing to respond.

First I read back on some previous post here that the guys at Sandia never made the breakthrough of a rotary motion version of the device, and this breakthrough dodn't occur until "about ten years ago by IDS-Research." My question is how is the scrollerwheel different from the sketch of the "Rotary Bearing" with the "endless band" rolamite application that the original inventor provided to Popular Mechanics in the breakout article "The Amazing Rolamite- It Opens the Door for 1000 Inventions?"

The claim that the "breakthrough" of a rotary version of the rolamite was beyond the guys at Sandia is factually in error in my opinion.

My next piece is a comment: Companies are going to be skittish investing any resources into using the scroller wheel in an application when the patent holder is acting like a "non-practicing entity" as you describe above. If its up to every user to take the idea and assume all the risk of development for themselves and their particular application then that is the very risk taking that general patent law engourages and rewards. However if the idea is already patented then there is no motivation. That might explain the slow pace of adoption.

My third piece is a question to JD_Mortal: I am trying to visualize what you describe here: "One aspect that they didn't touch-on, is that you can fold a flat "O" ring around two tapered rollers forming a "U", and get perfect half-moon circular motion. (Use two long flat spirals or springs, and you have a perfectly linear rotation screw.)" and am having no luck whatsoever. Please elaborate, or even better a bare bones sketch would go a long way.