[Art Ransom]

see http://www.rexresearch.com/wilkes/1wilkes.htm for details of the rolamite. This seems to be a much easier and accurate system of motion control. Anyone have experience with it?

[Torque1st]

Much ado about nothing comes to mind...

The claims read like a lot of perpetual motion devices to me. In other words; -BS.

Just my 2¢

[Erik Brinkman]

Much ado about nothing comes to mind...

The claims read like a lot of perpetual motion devices to me. In other words; -BS.

Just my 2¢

THERE IS A VIDEO

http//www.ScrollerMechanics.com

[svenakela]

This is old school, nowadays we use bearings or ball beds (as in a linear guide).

[silverfox]

The information in the link is from Popular Science (March 1966) - I would think that if it is as good as they claim, someone would have made some use of it in the last 42 years.

[Mike Everman]

I've had some fun with these type of flexures. The things that bothered me about the Rolamite were mainly that if it were used as a linear bearing element, that the flatness would be dependent on circularity of the rolls and thickness consistency of the banding. A further problem is that a payload puts tension directly into the bands, creating a less than optimal spring-mass system.
Attached is a paper I did for ASPE explaining my MacroFlexure bearing element, which is similar to a Rolamite, but actually quite different. It can do some amazing things, but is really only useful for a small list of cases, mostly semiconductor metrology Z motions, where you might actually be concerned about an arc-second of tip-tilt throughout travel, which is rare upon rare. ha.
Neat, and fun stuff, but not a real barn-burner when it comes to a product.
You can see both in Alex Slocum's new MIT textbook.

[Erik Brinkman]

The information in the link is from Popular Science (March 1966) - I would think that if it is as good as they claim, someone would have made some use of it in the last 42 years.

The Rolamite is used as the safety for the trigger on Nukes.
it is also used in your car's airbag.

The problem with the Rolamite
is that is needs to made very precise in its little box.
It is totally reliable though.
It has been named the 26th "Fundamental Mechanism of Mechanics"
Quite a big deal.

Part of that need for precision means it uses Copper Berillium for its bands.
When Copper Berillium is machined it gives off a fine dust
that can cause cancer.

Lunch over.
Sorry I have meetings so not more time to post.
Haven't posted for over a year
but one of my people is getting abused on another forum
and emailed and mentioned that this forum was indirectly mentioned
so I thought I'd pop in and see if I could help clear anything up.

[Erik Brinkman]

First, I would like to assure "Torque1st"
that he can be confident that nothing coming out of Sandia Atomic Labs, including the Rolamite .... is "BS".
If you go to Wikipedia you can see some detail on the subject.

The issues with the Rolamite are about people's expectations. People do not expect that motion can have no slipping, sliding or rubbing and display ONLY rolling friction. It seems very counter-intuitive and thus easy to dismiss.

Rolamite technology is in fact in use. Because of its extreme reliability it is used your car's airbags as the inertia trigger mechanism. It was originally used as a safety for the trigger in the H-Bomb. It is still being used in that application.

The limitations were that the mechanism was linear only.
Sandia spent a great deal of effort in making the motion rotary because most all mechanical mechanisms are rotary. They were unable to make that breakthrough.

That breakthrough was made about ten years ago by IDS-Research.

link: http://www.erikbrinkman.com/scroller/video.html

On the left side of the page there is a link to the ScrollerWheel REPORT.
It is very extensive and detailed and should be read before application.
If you want advice on applying the technology, feel free to contact me.

[Art Ransom]

The simplecity is unreal. What I was interested was the possible use of the rolamite concept in controling axis movement and gear reduction. The band becomes the critical factor in being able to handle the load. The only commercial application I have found is for a postal scale.
Three articles in Popular Science and development by and patent held by Sandia Labs tells me this is not some BS idea but I would like to find some real world use and data before I jump into building a indexer using it.

[Erik Brinkman]

The applications that I am aware of are Military and I cannot speak of the details of such matters, but I would suggest that you read the ScrollerWheel Report after which we can talk about your application. If your understanding is such that your application is feasible, I shall be pleased to help you reach your goal.

[halverson.peter]

The applications that I am aware of are Military and I cannot speak of the details of such matters....

I promised myself I wouldn't get into this... I'm actually a big fan of the rolamite and I think the scroller is pretty cool. However Erik, your company, IDS, is a Canadian based company, your scroller patent was issued while you were living in Canada. So my question is, how does a Canadian get access to a US national laboratory and privy to military secrets so secret that he cannot talk about them to this day? Have we really gotten that lax in our security? I realize that sandia publishes certain manuscripts, in fact I have the "Rolamite - Geometry and Force Analysis [SC-RR-68-223]" report sitting in my bookcase but once published they are no longer secrets.

[Mike Everman]

Hi Guys,
Just thought I'd mention a patent of mine that's a Rollamite-esque flexure, not really for long travel rotary to linear driving, rather a completely flexure based short travel bearing with zero backlash and zero rolling friction. Here's a paper I wrote about it.

[halverson.peter]

Mike,

Did you say you had a patent on it? Is the patent on a positioning system or on the wrapped flexure system?

I believe an identical flexure system was shown in N. P. Chironis and N. Sclater, Mechanisms and Mechanical Devices Sourcebook. McGraw-Hill, 1996.

[Erik Brinkman]

I promised myself I wouldn't get into this... I'm actually a big fan of the rolamite and I think the scroller is pretty cool. However Erik, your company, IDS, is a Canadian based company, your scroller patent was issued while you were living in Canada. So my question is, how does a Canadian get access to a US national laboratory and privy to military secrets so secret that he cannot talk about them to this day? Have we really gotten that lax in our security? I realize that sandia publishes certain manuscripts, in fact I have the "Rolamite - Geometry and Force Analysis [SC-RR-68-223]" report sitting in my bookcase but once published they are no longer secrets.

Interesting story.
Being who I am, I have special contacts all over the R&D world.
My clearance is not the issue though.
It is still nearly impossible because of the nuke paranoia.
I have special contacts at Sandia
and yet even then the report disappeared several times from his desk
before he could scrub it and send it to me.

I was important to me and to all responsible people involved
that some specific pages be removed before sending it across the border.

Four times the report "disappeared" before it could be sent.
He had to eventually go into Red Mountain himself
and get a copy, scrubbed it himself and sent it all in one day.

As a result I got the report 8 months after my original request.
Some pages missing, (not that I didn't know how to make a nuke already).
Then the fear was that it would be grabbed at the border
because of where it came from.

I was visited, my phone monitored and mail monitored for a while
until they were convinced that I was one of the good guys.

My contact was offered early retirement.
They are very thorough.
All good.

[Torque1st]

Erik, I worked with some applications from Sandia also. Unfortunately I have seen a lot of BS and other things over the years. It is a good lab for the most part but not everything is wonderful that comes out of there. Sorry but I can not mention specifics either.

[Erik Brinkman]

Your assertion that some of what comes out of the Sandia Labs is "BS"
is surprising. I do not mean to offend, but I find it quite unlikely.

You see, developments go through an exhaustive peer review process,
so what is released is extensively reviewed by highly qualified minds.
Every possible question and/or objection is addressed.
The finding from the lab are thus supported by the scientific community.

It is hard to imagine that your judgement that some releases are "BS"
is likely to be in any way more valid than the community as a whole.
Could it be that you instead dismissed what you did not understand ?

[Torque1st]

Not hardly.

I am well aware of the processes there. Apparently some people have more faith in peer reviews than I have.

I also don't just jump on "supposedly" new ideas even if this one was published back in 66. Read the piece originally linked to and tell me all the claims are true.

[Erik Brinkman]

Whether you have faith in the peer review process is of no consequence in that the review process is not based on faith. It is an objective review process by many of the world's top scientists (done via the DARPA net) and is based on provable fact, not faith. The very purpose of the peer review process is to eliminate any chance of "BS". Am I to suppose that the considered reviews of scores of the countries best minds is inferior ?

What claims to do you believe are false ?

[Torque1st]

The first statement "Frictionless" is bad enough but then it gets deeper somewhat like the hype we all see from time to time for "green" devices or perpetual motion machines. I dislike that type of hype intensely. The media is good at it and all too many people fall for it.

[Art Ransom]

Eric, I am planning on building my second indexer. As with the original the x will be 128", Z will be reduced to 7", Y will be expanded to 50" and A will stay at 18". This setup will allow me to route 4' by 8' and turn columns up to 18" by 128". Unlike you I am not trying to engrave on nano tubes but only need .01" of accuracy though I presently am running at .003" as close as I can tell. On X and Y I want a gear reduction between 5:1 to 10:1 and speeds will be up to 300 IPM. With Z I am planning to use a 20:1 gear box primarly because I want the "locking" holding power to keep the Z up with power off. A will be 10:1.
I can see the brain power to develop the scrowlerwheel but a PhD to discover the rolamite?
Any help would be appreciated. You can reach me off site at [email protected].