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Simple Bearing Tester Print E-mail
Wednesday, 09 April 2008 16:00
bearing tester

Using plastic tweezer as a bearing holder to test how smooth the spin is. 

 

 

 



 

bearing tester
bearing after cleaning
A battered plastic tweezer with a bearing. Other than to pick it from degreasing container, it has 'hidden' purpose as a bearing holder. We found it difficult to hold the bearing by the center and try free spin it to see how smooth your bearing is. Finding a tool that can fit most of the miniature RC bearing is almost impossible if not expensive. Well, not anymore, not with this plastic tweezer.

 












bearing tester
bearing on a tweezer

Our plastic tweezer is a flat tip type, about 4mm in width. The shape of the tweezer is just perfect to accomodate upto 1510 bearing size. Slide the bearing through it's hole along the tweezer until just nicely tight and voila, it stays.
Now we can freely spin the bearing and get the feel how free it is.












bearing tester
big bearing on a tweezer

Use both side of the tweezer for larger size of bearings.

Press your left/right thumb on its edge and give it a spin. If you have an greased bearing, give it a go as a benchmark to the treated bearing as a comparison. If you have a few method of bearing treatment, this tool (and the help of your mighty thumb) may just show you which method or lubricant works better. It's not a quantified measure but for such a cheap solution, it is good enough (yeah right) well, at least for time being.









bearing tester
small bearing on a tweezer

For smaller type of bearing, not less than 4mm ID in our case; use just one side of the tweezer.