Large Solid Hamster Wheel

thingiverse

This hamster wheel is designed to be large (214mm diameter, 90mm width), stable, and above all quiet ( I was losing sleep with the store bought wheel when he was "Dialing Out" at 3am (see Stargate hamster wheel on thingiverse)). It prints in two pieces that snap together. It runs on 608ZZ (8mm inner diameter, 22mm outer diameter, 7mm thick) skateboard bearings easily found on amazon ( I chose ABEC-9 just because it is what I had on hand... I am sure anything down to ABEC-1 would work for this application). The bearings are a very tight fit by design and require a hairdryer to soften the PLA to press them in. I used makerbeam 10x10mm extruded aluminum profile to construct the supports attached to the tank/cage. The aluminum pillow blocks were left over from another an Imperial set I had lying around, but they fit too perfect to not use. I did have to mix in metric and Imperial and that always rubs me the wrong way. But an efficiently finished project is its own reward. Note: quick thingiverse search resulted in a maker beam pillow block that can be printed out and modified to work... https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:899622 I used a 5/16" diameter 5" bolt with an anti-slip nut as the axle (and washers for proper spacing).