Better bearings for boat motors maybe?

[ray schrauwen]

Lets hear what some guys with more bearing knowledge can bounce off these sorta new things from Boca. Seems like they would eliminate a need for any thrust bearing??

http://www.bocabearings.com/bearing-types/angular-contact-bearings?utm_source=emmanewsletter&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_term=radialbearings&utm_campaign=newsletterissue1

Lets hear some thoughts please

[ray schrauwen]

Hey Mods, could you move this to the motor section? Sorry!

[RaceMechaniX]

Ray,
Angular contact bearings are a special case. Yes, they can easily replace a thrust bearing and a normal ball bearing, but they must be used in pairs and you must maintain a certain preload on them. Angular contact bearings are often used in CNC Mill spindles, very high speed motors, model turbine engines and other special applications where the thrust loads of a ball bearing would drastically decrease lifetime.

I have set-up motors with angular contact bearings and used wave springs to maintain the correct pre-load, but in general the cost and set-up complexity is not worth the gains. They are also hideously expensive for a good pair.

TG

[ray schrauwen]

Thank you Tyler. Do you ever use thrust bearings? Where do you let the thrust bear onto for the majority of your boats?

[RaceMechaniX]

Ray,

Recently I have tried to setup most of my boats with a square drive cable so I am pushing off the strut. When I can't do this, I will try and add a Tamiya 5mm thrust washer between the motor and collet. The last resort is just pushing on the shaft.

TG

[ray schrauwen]

I tried a thrust bearing on my TP 4070 and since its OD was same as OD on front bearing, one part of the three piece thrust bearing pushed the front bearing back and got stuck in the front plate. I just tapped the rear of the shaft lightly with wood block and it popped out.
The TP is not shimmed correctly I think.
I have a HET here to try instead on Brian Buaas recommendation. It's built much nicer than TP and feels more like the new NEU motors.