I fixed my dad's angle grinder with a ball bearing I salvaged from my gerbil's old excercise wheel a few years back.

It was even the same brand. I love when hoarding materials pays off.

DIY @slrpnk.net

Thorny_Insight @lemm.ee

1y ago

I fixed my dad's angle grinder with a ball bearing I salvaged from my gerbil's old excercise wheel a few years back.

25 comments

6201RS
6 - type code: single-row, deep groove ball bearing
2 - series / robustness: (2 corresponds with 'light', which is more durable than 0, but less durable than 3 or 4)
01 - size code: 12mm bore (inner diameter)
RS - grease seal: rubber seal one side (no seal would be '6201', both sides sealed would be '6201-2RS'. Z and ZZ are used similarly to indicate presence of steel shield(s))
The 6201 is a good fit for this application, and providing the gerbil wasn't too hard on it, should last a long time.
- Comments like these are why I periodically still love the internet.
  
  I kinda needed this today, thank you. <3
- This guy bearing.
- I recently took apart my weed whacker and it used the same ball bearing. I actually learned that these ball bearing casings (?) are super common. I replaced mine with a skate board bearing and it's as good as new.
So what do we think folks? Underbuilt angle grinder or overbuilt gerbil wheel?
- Its a mass produced bearing type. Most likely the cheapest option for both devices. Optimizing a bearing for a gerbil wheel seems like the real overengineering in my opinion.
  
  This is one of the counter intuitive things about production at scale. I remember I added factory cruise control to a Mazda 3 by buying the steering wheel with the buttons and having a technician flip a switch in the ECU. Everything else was already there.
  They never made any additional changes to non equipped cara because it's cheaper to just produce 1 part or 1 configuration and digitally lock it out. 2500$ option with a 200$ fix.
  
  Thing is, when I had gerbils, their exercise wheel turned on a cylinder of plastic inside another cylinder of plastic. I also had one that was a wire wheel with sheet metal spokes and a wire base, the "bearings" were the wires of the base poked into holes in the spokes. A gerbil wheel having a ball bearing at all seems a little bit extra to me.
Not all bearings are created equal. This might last for years. This also might explode into fast-moving metal shards in a day. It shouldn't be a big problem if it does, as an angle grinder should be built to contain exploding bearings, but it might be worth ordering a higher-spec bearing to have on hand before you need it in a hurry.
Those look like skateboard bearings to me, they are quite common. A relatively high quality set of 8 bearings is like 15 bucks if you have a skateshop nearby
- Reds. Look for Bones Reds.
That's either a very over-engineered hamster wheel, or that grinder was under spec'd.
- Yeah, it's a Ryobi grinder and the excercise wheel was quite high quality one.
  
  Yep, pretty sure there's some overlap in that, lol.
That's a balls-y move.
They don’t make gerbil exercise wheels like they used to.
That's dope man!
What happened to your gerbil, op?
Your answer will be highly scrutinized.
- Something involving angle grinders.
  
  o7 He was the bravest little cosmonaut trainee
- They used the old one as a toilet and it made the entire terrarium smell like piss
- OP flushed him but that plugged the pipes so he had to use a drum auger clear the blockage.
- Safely stored in rectum

25 comments