3DM Avila 75mm 73A: drilling & generic wheel pulley

hey there, today I tested these highly praised supersoft slalom/downhill wheels on my tesseract build and I LOVE them - they feel softer than my 90mm abec 75A AND more grippy than my 80A kegels … and all that with a 75mm diameter, i.e. I get a lot closer to the ground AND I can remove all the silly risers again!!

now I wonder, if anyone has a good source of generic wheel pulleys, maybe even specialised pulleys for similar wheels. I was thinking about buying http://www.hellray.de/shop/#!/eSkateboard-Pulley-für-Blank-Wheels-32T-oder-36T-für-15mm-Zahnriemen/p/64388596/category=15255001 but Im not sure if they extend out enough, because the distance bearing <-> outer wheel lip is pretty large (Ill measure tomorrow).

besides the pulley, I sort of expect that Ill need to drill holes. I have access to a drill press, but how do you perfectly center the pulley? what kind of drill is best to get through solid skateboard wheels? wood, metal, stone? would be nice to read the details before I screw up a great set of wheels! :wink:

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inner side comparison kegel <-> avila

old enertion pulley fits quite well, wish I had that in 15mm :confused:

torqueboards 12mm pulley is slightly too far within the urethane!

ADS 32T pulley, looks better than 36T with that wheel size!

pretty steep descent, probably need a counter ring like tb and old enertion boards?

used old bearings to center torqueboards ring, ready for drilling, but no clue if thats so easy, which drill to use, etc …

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I’m in the same situation as you. Planning on drilling through solid wheels with a drill press but in the dark as to what kind of bit… Please keep me posted as to how your method worked!

theres a drill bit for almost every type of material known , metal , wood and plastic are easy . but for rubber and eurethane needs a hollowed cylindrical drill bit . thin hollow tube with a sharp edge e.g. a hollow punch . i’ve seen it before . just not as commonly used . just googled this and found eng.tips . engineering tips ?

here , it is advised to put rubber into a fridge so as to partially freeze the rubber before drilling … well read the advise in it . i am no engineer nor am i good at english .

while here in this short video it is advised to use a dish washer liquid instead of usual cooling oil used in drilling metal . very useful info .

i watched a video before about a diy’er drilling 4 holes into a 90mm solid wheels with just a clamper to hold the wheel with the normal drill bit on a drill press . maybe his drill bit is new and very sharp , i guess . and it worked . made himself an electric longboard . just couldnt find the video . too bad i didnt marked it as “watch later” .

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I drilled through my generic wheels. I just made a jig that lines up with the bearings and used my drill press with a normal drill

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nice! I planned to use an existing pulley as jig since I probably wouldnt be able to space it precise and even. :confused:

what do you mean with a “normal drill”? it looks like a metal drill bit, but not sure.

thats a really good tip, I just put my avilas in the fridge and fingers crossed my girlfriend wont find out :sweat_smile:

@whitepony You could say its a metal bit its just an overall cheap drill bit.

thought about maybe drilling a little bit into the wheel, just enough to sink the aliendrivesystem kegel pulley “horns” into the urethane:

… and then glue it with something really strong! anyone got experience with glueing?

Two part epoxy is usually pretty permanent. Just make sure you let it cure properly and don’t put stress on it before its cured.

tried it now, 2component epoxy for polyurethane/aluminum. had the wheel in the freezer, but didnt make a real difference - while drilling it heated up right away. used some soap water too, it just evaporated quickly - bottom line: regular drilling like @Chris_KP :stuck_out_tongue:

the holes didnt look very beautiful, at least I didnt hurt the small inner core:

but the ADS kegel pulley fit in well:

finally the epoxy and its curing under some mild pressure now:

I dont have high hopes for this kind of pulley, but lets see what happens :slight_smile:

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Heat will be your enemy

epoxy doesnt mind heat, so what does in your eyes?

the only one i could find in youtube that proves my theory is correct .

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looks really great, I just didnt find any kind of hollow drill anywhere, so I didnt follow up on that. not sure how easy thats going to work with a thick wheel though :slight_smile:

wow thats looks very clean! I wonder how that epoxy is going to hold up holding that pulley on there.

thats why . i couldnt find a hollowed drill bit either . maybe had to make ownself .

If the epoxy doesn’t hold just bolt it to the wheel.

Yeah I would just bolt it through. I predict the glue will probably fail. Interesting test though.

ye, the glue held up 500m, then I carried my board back home. :stuck_out_tongue:

I then drilled 3mm holes for the original ADS screws and made some sort of socket for wider washers with my colleagues router, so the screws had support by the inner small core and the steel part of the bearing:

quick video of centered pulley and screws with wide washers

overall my test drive was weird though, the drive wheel felt wobbly despite perfectly centered. my guess is, that 73A is really a little too soft for the constant torque of a 63mm motor - my holes also might have structurally impaired the wheel. additionally, my motor and carbon enclosure picked up a lot more stones and other debris, cause the board was a lot closer to the ground (i also removed my risers since I didnt have to be afraid of wheelbite anymore).

back to bread and butter 90mm abecs again for now :confused:

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