WIRE DRIVES

[Martin Hamilton]

Gil have you done any tests using ball bearings against other types of bushings in the struts.

 

[hugh hargett]

If the idea of extra bearings is for extra support it seems brass would be okay too

 

[Charles Perdue]

Charles can i ask what type of bearings/bushings you prefer to use in the struts with wire drives ie ball bearings or other type of bushings. Martin.

Martin, a ball bearing that fits the wire will work, phosphor bronze or vespel will work for a bushing on the wire.

 

[Charles Perdue]

Charles can i ask what type of bearings/bushings you prefer to use in the struts with wire drives ie ball bearings or other type of bushings. Martin.

I run 2 unflanged ball bearings in the front of the strut and 1 flanged and 1 unflanged on the rear.

 

[Martin Hamilton]

Charles what advantages have you noticed using ball bearings in the strut over plain bushings of various materials. Is it more about less wear at high rpm with the ball bearings or is their less friction as well. Martin.

 

[Charles Perdue]

Not trying to be a smart a$$. But what do you run in your engines, bearings or bushings and why?

Charles

 

[Martin Hamilton]

In electric rc i run ball bearings, i also ran the Speedmaster style floating bush all custom made to suit my needs & the later was deff down on reves & speed in the same boat same everything on the same day at the lake. In my ic tethered hydros i ran ball bearings 40 years ago with good success for a number of years. Then went to bronze ( cast bronze ) which is now the standard material used on 99% of tethered hydros including all the current world records. We only run for around 30 seconds so a light oil of the bronze bearings is sufficient for lubing. Exruded bronze ( the very copper coloured one ) dosnt work well at all as it picks up on the shafts & blues them & can seize, the cast bronze dosnt do that at all. Ive never run lead teflon but they feel like they spin fairly free but not sure how they wear at higher rpm. Just like to get opinions on peoples experiences on diff types of bearings & materials, Some say they like lead teflon others prefer ball bearings & so on. Martin.

 

[shoboat]

Martin,

We are returning to years past just to test out a smaller hard shaft with bearings again.

We like to go back and re-test older ideas with newer materials every once in a while.

The ball bearings have much less drag than bushings. This way of testing has helped

us in many different areas with just newer materials.

Have Fun Testing,

Mark Sholund

 

[Marty Davis]

Gill, yes I have been using the wires for years. That is the only thing I will put in a .12 boat. My latest .21 boat also has a wire that Charle Perdue made for me. He has really perfect the wiredrive in the bigger boats. They work great, have much less driveline drag, and are holding up fine with the bigger motors. You will want to put some bend in the wire!!! You need to force the wire to bend one way or it will whip all over the place! The bend in the stuffing tube in very important...it must match the natural bend the wire takes from the motor collet to the front of the strut! You will also want to run ball bearings in the strut. I think Charles is using something like .125 wire in his .45 boat (I have .062" in the .12 and .078" in the .21). There are no commercially available collets for ther bigger wire sizes that I know of (I stock the one for the .062").

Glenn

Glenn:

Are you using Piano Wire?

 

[gil sonsino]

Martin I've been using stainless steel and ceramic ball bearings with no issues......never tried bushing due to their drag.this is the place where you can find very good ones with fast service.

http://www.vxb.com/

Gill

 

[Marty Davis]

Gill, yes I have been using the wires for years. That is the only thing I will put in a .12 boat. My latest .21 boat also has a wire that Charle Perdue made for me. He has really perfect the wiredrive in the bigger boats. They work great, have much less driveline drag, and are holding up fine with the bigger motors. You will want to put some bend in the wire!!! You need to force the wire to bend one way or it will whip all over the place! The bend in the stuffing tube in very important...it must match the natural bend the wire takes from the motor collet to the front of the strut! You will also want to run ball bearings in the strut. I think Charles is using something like .125 wire in his .45 boat (I have .062" in the .12 and .078" in the .21). There are no commercially available collets for ther bigger wire sizes that I know of (I stock the one for the .062").

Glenn

Glenn:

Are you using Piano Wire?

Martin I've been using stainless steel and ceramic ball bearings with no issues......never tried bushing due to their drag.this is the place where you can find very good ones with fast service.

http://www.vxb.com/

Gill

I think that I would like to try this but I have some concerns. If there was a squeeze collet available for the engine end, I would feel more secure than set screws. Is there any reason that you couldn't use a square drive setup with the wire? That way you could have a square drive collet on the engine and it would only take soldering a square piece to the top of the wire. At the rear the same as we currently run with square drives (a tapered brass to set screw to the stub shaft.

Just thinking out loud....

 

[gil sonsino]

Marty with small engines .12 and .21 I haven't faced any problems with the collet(with screws) but the idea of the square end may be possible using a square piece on the top..I will try this set up on my next .12 boat...we need to thing loud lol!

Thanks

Gill

 

[Charles Perdue]

Marty, I could not get the set screws to hold the wire itself even using 6 screws in the collets. The wire also needs a center support to prevent it from setting up harmonics in the wire that happens sometimes, to make it "Bullet Proof". This would prevent you from soldering a square end on the wire itself.

Charles

PS Tom, would you know why when I post only on IW that the print type keeps changing?

 

[Glenn Quarles]

Gill, yes I have been using the wires for years. That is the only thing I will put in a .12 boat. My latest .21 boat also has a wire that Charle Perdue made for me. He has really perfect the wiredrive in the bigger boats. They work great, have much less driveline drag, and are holding up fine with the bigger motors. You will want to put some bend in the wire!!! You need to force the wire to bend one way or it will whip all over the place! The bend in the stuffing tube in very important...it must match the natural bend the wire takes from the motor collet to the front of the strut! You will also want to run ball bearings in the strut. I think Charles is using something like .125 wire in his .45 boat (I have .062" in the .12 and .078" in the .21). There are no commercially available collets for ther bigger wire sizes that I know of (I stock the one for the .062").

Glenn

Glenn:

Are you using Piano Wire?

Marty, yes I am using regular K&S piano wire. I have to go through the tubes at the local hobby shop to find the straight ones...I'm looking for straight as in not twisted (as opposed to bent). As you look down a length of wire some of them have this funky helixal twist to them that make them not work at all for a shaft.

Glenn

 

[Glenn Quarles]

Gill, yes I have been using the wires for years. That is the only thing I will put in a .12 boat. My latest .21 boat also has a wire that Charle Perdue made for me. He has really perfect the wiredrive in the bigger boats. They work great, have much less driveline drag, and are holding up fine with the bigger motors. You will want to put some bend in the wire!!! You need to force the wire to bend one way or it will whip all over the place! The bend in the stuffing tube in very important...it must match the natural bend the wire takes from the motor collet to the front of the strut! You will also want to run ball bearings in the strut. I think Charles is using something like .125 wire in his .45 boat (I have .062" in the .12 and .078" in the .21). There are no commercially available collets for ther bigger wire sizes that I know of (I stock the one for the .062").

Glenn

Glenn:

Are you using Piano Wire?

Martin I've been using stainless steel and ceramic ball bearings with no issues......never tried bushing due to their drag.this is the place where you can find very good ones with fast service.

http://www.vxb.com/

Gill

I think that I would like to try this but I have some concerns. If there was a squeeze collet available for the engine end, I would feel more secure than set screws. Is there any reason that you couldn't use a square drive setup with the wire? That way you could have a square drive collet on the engine and it would only take soldering a square piece to the top of the wire. At the rear the same as we currently run with square drives (a tapered brass to set screw to the stub shaft.

Just thinking out loud....

Marty, I have the regular squeeze collets for the .12 motors (5mm shaft) to .062 wire, I have been trying to get Octura to make some 1/4-28 to .078 wire collets for the .21 boats.

GQ

 

[hugh hargett]

Marty ,octura makes squeeze collets on the wire end the set screw I spoke of is on the motor end

 

[Charles Perdue]

Martin I've been using stainless steel and ceramic ball bearings with no issues......never tried bushing due to their drag.this is the place where you can find very good ones with fast service.

http://www.vxb.com/

Gill

I prefer the ball bearings in the struts for low drag and also for no play in the stub shaft, No play prevents the prop from moving around and trying to steer the boat. Allows the boat track very well.

Charles

 

[gil sonsino]

Charles how is the performance of your 45 with wire drive? I'm curious to know because with a flexshaft my boat runs in the low 80's for heat and I guess with less drag of a wire drive its performance must increase reasonably.

Gill

 

[Charles Perdue]

It runs OK. I have not ran it without a wire drive so I am not able to compare the two as for speed. I ran about a gallon of fuel thru it and had no problems with the wire drive.

Charles

 

[hugh hargett]

The reason I prefer to use the teflon liner with the wire is; even though you try to match the natural bend of the wire with the stuffing tube;the wire still bounces around which will give you the bad harmonics like charles spoke of "The wire also needs a center support to prevent it from setting up harmonics in the wire that happens sometimes...." the center support keeps the wire in check - coz it wants to bounce around. The liner is a cheap easy way to do it. You can add an oil log put a small hole in the teflon and oil it with light machine oil before running. Some have taken three bearing one on each end one at the mid point solder them in place then run all three and the wire up a smoothly curved stuffing tube. To keep the wire/bearing in the tube, youd let the tube be an eigth inch or so longer than the bearing/wire on each end, the take two small 1/4 inch wide rings cut from tubing that would fit inside the tube press one in each end against the end bearing and solder it in place. Of course the wire would protrude and inch or so past the beaings allowing you too hook up the stub and the wire collet

Hugh

Me I prefer to use a teflon liner smaller than my tube and let it flap around coz I dont think it flaps under load, or at least it is minimized. The teflon will let it slap without harmonics or once again minimize them. I like to let the wire float a little. It cannot contsrict like flex so I like to give it a little freedom. It is restricted by the bend in the stuffing tube somewat. I like to keep the tube around 3/16 od or maybe a size up. I like the idea of bearings ,but I feel theres a point of overkill as the bearings themselves take away revs with inherent drag in numbers, and the additional weight of the bearing races.If major shaft support is what your looking for on your prop shaft id look at needle bearings or bearings with a wider race. To me - I want great shaft support, without adding too much rotational mass. Just my 2 ct.

marty the standard nitro car engine spur gear is held on a 5mm screw on shaft with a groove 2 bearings and a c clip. you can take your collet off replace it with the screw on 5mm shaft. You can then use an octura to .078 or .062 electric collet . If youre worried about slippage on the motor end just grind a flat spot on the screw on shaft.