Grabbing Gears
I found a design by d.revan to motorize a telescope using GT2 timing belts and it’s cool. He uses:
- GT2 belts and pulleys instead of gears
- 608-2RS skateboard bearings to let the shafts spin (smart!)
- a giant mega printed gear attached to wood for the final gear stage
- 4:1, 4:1, then 15:1 gear stages
…but I tried seeing how much the parts would be on AliExpress, and it was surprisingly hard to find gears with the right 8mm bore and wider than normal 10mm belt width. And the shipping added up - you’d see a $1 part plus $4 shipping. And buying two different parts from the same seller was twice the shipping! Just the tiny metal rods were $3 with $15 shipping, let alone gears!
So instead I asked around the synthesizer community, and found robotdigg.com, which is a janky 3D printer china company with a slightly hanky website but sells GT2 belts and pulleys for very cheap. And thankfully it all ships from one place, so only one shipping fee! I was able to buy the parts for one gearbox for $25!!!
So $50 later, I bought enough for two gearboxes, one per axle.
Now to CAD it up! D.revan’s design is slightly different from mine because I’m using smaller pulleys, but the idea seems similar enough that I think it’ll work. If I can motorize my telescope for $50 that’ll be incredible.