So for anyone curious, ball bearings by themselves work fantastically, far better than the roller ball bearings. They rotate much more freely, and can handle weight much better.
I'm moving on to larger scale testing, large enough for walking with full weight, albeit with small steps.
The problem...
So far the only issue seems to be the balloon latex catches on the metal I was wrong, it's actually getting caught between the bearing and it's metal encasing ( when I put pressure down) of the roller bearings. It does stick to the metal exterior but only on the exterior rollers. If the latex...
I do have some ideas on that, one that's ridiculously simple though I'm not sure it's technically possible due to it being patented. I'm going to have to dig deeper into how that works.
Ahh that's pretty clever! The only problem I could see is the ball bearings clamping the material between each other as weight is put on top.
The other problem is, at least at the consumer level, ball bearings are pretty expensive. I was thinking about rollers, but they aren't much less...
There are a few companies that make Omnidirectional treadmills, but none are on the consumer market, and all except for one are simply frictionless bowls. From what I've heard they aren't very satisfying to use. The treadmills made of treadmills is giant and unwieldy, and watching the video you...
Both good points.
But for now I'm just trying to get a proof of concept. Get an idea of how different pressures will affect the bearings and the sphere's ability to rotate and such.
So the end goal is to have an omnidirectional non motorized treadmill of sorts. My idea is to have two half spheres lined with rollers, either ball bearing or simple rollers. One of the halves will have a portion cut out from the bottom to leave a space for the sphere.
That's what I was hoping...
Water would work in creating the shape I imagine, and will work for testing, but the overall goal will require a material that can be withstand a considerable amount of pressure being placed on top sometimes more pointed than spread out. For that I intend to use sand.
With the smaller balloon...
Thanks for the ideas! I was actually just looking at balloons seeing if I could find some that are made to be spherical. If I can find that I can create a mold to do the latex.
Would you happen to know if there are different sorts of latex? I was trying to but everything I was searching was just...
Yes that certainly does, perhaps exactly what I was hoping to find, thank you!
As an update, I thought perhaps to try liquid latex, at the very least as a test material.
First off, I'm not a scientist or engineer and I apologize if I don't give a clear description of my question. I'm beginning a personal project and was hoping for some knowledge and assistance.
What I'm trying to achieve is to have a spherical object (it will be at least twice as wide as it is...