Spinner plan, success!

[dkersten]

So in my first cab, I placed the spinner closer to the players, set it to the left of center to be close to the player 1 buttons, and put the trackball closer to the monitor (but still plenty far back).  Conceptually this worked out great for a few reasons:  First, it is very comfortable to play spinner games, I don't have to reach over any other controls.  Second, I can pop the knob off and stick the wheel on and play sprint and pole position and it is exactly in the right place for a wheel and works really well.

BUT, there is a problem with it - it is too close to the trackball and when the knob is on you can bump it easily when playing games like golden tee, pool, or shuffleshot.  This of course makes whatever you are doing take a sharp left turn.  So I usually remove the knob when playing these games and for the most part it is out of the way.  But then I went to hit a shot to the right in golden tee and nailed that shaft with the palm of my hand pretty hard.  That got me to thinking of a better solution.

What I need is a shaft extension, about 1.5" long, half of it with the 6mm diameter of the shaft, and half with a hole 6mm wide.  I don't use the set screw on the knob or the wheel, and it grips just fine because the tolerance is pretty tight, and this extension would need to be the same.  I don't care if the extension has set screws in it, I just won't use them and I need the extension to fit over the existing shaft and grip enough to spin the spinner, and also allow a knob or wheel to go over the other end and do the same.  So I can't just use a drill bit extension that is close, I need something machined to 6mm accurately.

The idea is to cut a small 2" square wood plate, drill the mounting hole for the spinner in that, then drill 4 holes and use threaded inserts in the CP to mount it underneath like a joystick.  This will put the shaft of the spinner almost exactly at the level of the surface of the CP, so when nothing is being used, you will never hit it.  Using the extension, I could still attach a knob or wheel to it when I want to use it.  With the knob on by default, the hole is covered, so the raw hole is no big deal.

So I googled the heck out of 6mm shaft extension and other derivatives, and all I can find is some out of China that take 4-6 weeks to get here, or some specialty pieces from places like Grainger that cost $35-60 each!  The Chinese ones are like $3-5 each, which is more where I want to be.  Now, motor couplings will work too since it shouldn't be hard to find some 6mm shaft to cut to length, but rigid couplings are also seemingly impossible to find in the U.S. and all I can find are the flexible couplings, which I am sure will fail with a wheel too quickly.  Other options are to get some stock and take it to a machinist to turn and drill out, but again I am back to $35+ to get it done.

Any ideas?  If I order from anywhere I don't want to wait 2 months to get it, and I don't want to spend nearly $50 and find out it is too loose and won't work.  Anyone ever try this before?  Can anyone come up with a U.S. source for this?

[lilshawn]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/6-Drill-Bit-x-1-4-hole-6mm-Extension-Shaft-for-drills-scuff-hones-/231152917204?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35d1c99ad4

  maybe?

[dkersten]

Those are actually 6.24mm, too big.. that is the problem, a lot of1/4" stuff out there but not much straight up 6mm..

Thanks for trying though  
 Hoping someone has done a spinner shaft extension and knows something that would work well..

[PL1]

Those are actually 6.24mm, too big.. that is the problem, a lot of1/4" stuff out there but not much straight up 6mm..

Thanks for trying though  
 Hoping someone has done a spinner shaft extension and knows something that would work well..

You can use a drill and sandpaper to grind the shaft down.

Either that or look for 6mm metal rod and use a shaft coupler.




Scott

[dkersten]

I'd like to use a 6mm coupler but $50 shipped for one is a little high. I could sand off a quarter inch shaft to bring it down but I can't fill the quarter inch hole down to 6mm. It has to fit perfectly with no play (like the knobs do) because I won't be able to tighten a set screw.

There's gotta be a 6mm rigid coupler in the states that doesn't cost more than a few dollars. It's a piece of steel with a hole drilled in it, lol. 

[PL1]

$50??   

Try this one instead. . .

http://www.amazon.com/Stepper-Motor-Coupling-Coupler-Encoder/dp/B00DGYHUPK/

. . . or this one.

http://www.amazon.com/6mmx6mm-Helical-Coupler-Coupling-Length/dp/B00KHRSMTM/


Scott

[dkersten]

Those are the flexible ones.

[PL1]

One more try.

This 1/4" to 6mm coupler, combined with a piece of 1/4" metal rod.

Use the drill-sanding method to reduce the exposed rod diameter to 6mm.


Scott

[dkersten]

After you mentioned sanding a quarter inch rod down, I thought about that. I'll give it a try. Gonna need some strong steel rod though. Stainless probably.  Thanks!

[dkersten]

OK, I had some decent success here.

First off, I did get my parts from Karlsson Robotics.  I went direct because on Amazon each part had shipping, and direct it was all bundled together.  Shipping was reasonably fast, USPS in a padded envelope, took about 4 business days.

I got a couple of the 6mm to 1/4" couplers and some 1.5" long 1/4" "d" shafts.  If I were going to make more, I would use full round and add my own flat spot afterward.  These are both stainless steel and nice and strong. 

The 6mm hole fits well on the spinner, although there is a little more play than I would prefer.  It does work though, and even without using a set screw, during gameplay I never noticed it slipping at all, the control was spot on.

So I started by trimming about 1/4" off the 1.5" shafts.  I used a die grinder with a cutoff wheel and had it cut in about 20 seconds.

Then I put the shaft in my drill press to hold it and to file it down.  First I turned on the drill press and used a file to deburr the cut.  Then I flipped the shaft around and left about 3/4" of the shaft exposed.  I turned on the drill press again and used a rough file first to get it close to 6mm.  I didn't use a caliper to measure, just the spinner knob.  When I got close to 6mm, it started to fit but was super tight.  At this point I switched to a fine file to smooth it out, then some 120 grit sandpaper to smooth it down.  I wanted it to still have a rough surface so it would grip since I wasn't using set screws. 

My first try I cut it a little short and sanded it down a little too much.  That combined with the flat part of the D-shaft made the steering wheel a little wobbly.  The knob works fine with it though.  The second one was better, I got the length right, and was more careful in sanding it down. 

Obviously the ideal thing would be to use a lathe, but I don't have one handy, so this worked just fine.

To mount it, I first made a 2" x 2" piece of MDF.  I first drilled a 1.5" hole about 3/32" deep, then used the same center to drill out the 1 1/8" hole to mount the spinner.  This provided a recess so I could bolt the whole piece to the control panel.  I drilled a hole at each corner (with about a 3/16" bit)


Now I lined this up with the 1/2" hole in my CP and drilled the holes another 3/8" deep.  I then drilled those out to 1/4" and used threaded inserts.  I messed this up actually, which is why I didn't take a pic of it, lol.  My piece slipped and two of the holes were off by over an eighth of an inch, which required me to make a new piece.  Didn't take long but was frustrating to make such a simple mistake.

So then I mounted the spinner in the new mount and screwed it to the CP with the right sized threaded bolts.  You can see that it is well recessed, and the hole for it is only 1/2"  I could have gone smaller but figured the spinner might end up not being perfectly centered, so the 1/2" is still small enough to disappear on a dark panel (or to use a simple 1/2" plug to fill the hole when not in use) and big enough to allow for a little movement.


Here is the extension I made.  This is the short one, the one I cut nearly a half inch off the shaft..


And with it in place:


And with the knob on it (it was spinning when I took the pic, so it is a little blurry, lol)


So there you have it.. A simple way to recess a spinner so it is out of the way when not in use, can be placed close to the trackball or player buttons so that it is easier to use when you want it (ie not way up top over the other controls), and doesn't leave a massive gaping hole when not in use.  All for about $20 in parts (coupler, shaft, threaded inserts, threaded bolts, and shipping)

[yotsuya]

Nice. I wonder how the connection will hold up over time if you notice a little play now. Keep us posted.

[dkersten]

Will do.. I figured worst case scenario I could rough up the surface a little and increase the friction.  My second attempt left me with a far tighter fit than even the spinner shaft has with the knob, and since it is longer, more surface area to keep that friction up.

The "D" shaft is the reason the wheel wobbles a little.  It is centered and you can spin the wheel and it will go for 30 or 40 seconds before it stops still, but if I order up some 1/4" full round stainless bar I can easily make some new shafts without the play.  I think I can get a 72" length for like $10 on Amazon..

[Le Chuck]

Only thing I'd change about the design would be to have the connection key'd, just grind the post flat on one side and then use some no bake metal clay to fill the void in the connection.  Just drill a small hole or three for the metal clay to push through so it doesn't go anywhere once dry and you can grind that flush with the dremel on the outside.  Then it won't be able to ever spin free from the base post but can still lift right off. 

[dkersten]

Thought about something along those lines.  If I could get a hold of a "slice" of round stock, I could just epoxy it in place and use D-shaft..  But I figure if the wheel and knob I already have don't need a key to work, the extension shouldn't.. I will see how it holds up though..

[Xiaou2]

Id bet if you spun it with a Really fast acceleration, you could get it to skip some...
Especially, going from one direction to next... at max acceleration.

 Might consider epoxying some Neo magnets on both touching ends.   That will give a very strong connection, that probably is fail proof.   If one neo isnt strong enough, you could stack a few smaller neos... or get a thicker set of neos.

 This may also allow you to use a smaller diameter shaft guide.

 Another thing you could do, is to drop in a small bushing or pipe, to narrow the hole gap.

 You can add a sliding top plate...  a flip up door  (magnetic),  a push down door set...  etc..  to hide the hole...

 You might even consider using a magnetic screwdriver... and connect to its hex shaped bits...

[dkersten]

I am sure it skips a little, but these spinners have incredibly high resolution, way more than what the game needs, so the skip is going to be one in dozens for one frame of gameplay, and hence not missed.  This is the same reason the wheel doesn't need a set screw, even though it is fairly loose just sliding it onto the spinner, in gameplay if there are any skips you just don't see it. 

I can see a dozen ways to do this in a better way, but only one way to do it for less than $20 without owning my own lathe and using parts that are a few days shipping to get.  That was a big part of the point.  I could easily take the spinner to a machine shop, have them spline the shaft, then make a female splined coupler with a 6mm shaft on top, and have a far superior extension, but that would cost me well into the $100 range.  Not worth it to me. 

Now that I have something that will work, I might just order up some of the 6mm extensions I can get from China for around $6 each.  I don't mind waiting 3-8 weeks for delivery at this point.