Two of my 42160 wheel hubs developed irregular patterns when spinning, some parts of the rotation felt rough on one, and the other simply had high friction. i chose to try opening one. simply pulling it apart with pliers did not work, so i used a dremel instead and carefully enough cut enough space to use a screwdriver to seperate the two halves of the black part of the hub. the internals seem to come pre lubricated, and i couldnt find any dirt inside that could have been causing the issues. with that said, i was less than scientific with my method of opening it, so its certainly possible any unwanted dirt inside simply came out once i opened it.

 

Plastic bushings and bearing have a certain lifetime as the material is very soft and can easily deform on high temps - I would put it under "regular wear".

 

Do yourself a favor and order ballbeared ones from TF Engineering.

Thanks for the pictures! It's pretty interesting to see inside those. I'm surprised they even have the plastic bearings!

7 hours ago, aFrInaTi0n said:

Do yourself a favor and order ballbeared ones from TF Engineering.

I just had a look at their products. they seem to only have the old standard rear wheel hub. im aware that because of its reduced profile it would be easier to build a structure around it so ir could be used like a front hub. but it also only accepts the old small cv joint, which have a habit of breaking under high load. if metal ones of those were available it would be a viable option, but currently i cant see it as one. thank you for bringing those to my attention though, they could be very useful in the future

I'm quite suprised they added some bearings in the new hubs, but maybe it just made sense as a gear replacement from the other downgear hubs.

@aFrInaTi0n As said, they sadly only support the old cv joints and from my understanding, one still have to pop in the other part of the hub. So i'm wondering if they are usefull at all. Sure ball bearings are nice, but if the 92909 parts are still just licked in, won't they fall out ? I mean bearings give a smoother ride and allow for higher rpms, means in a curve you get a bigger force pulling at the clicked in part. I had such issues a lot even at moderate walking speed.

Hi, Ben from TF-Engineering here,

I just want to answer some topics raised here about our hubs:

1. Yes, we use the standard 92909 or 6219840 piece, as the small CV is still widely used, espacially in smaller scale cars. This allows the hub to be small in size to give the builder as much mounting options as possible.

2. The flange pieces are mounted the same way as in the original Lego hub but there is an additional friction fit that keeps them in place. Just as an example, one of our customers uses our hubs on a car that has a recorded speed of 50kph, with the wheels still attached. (We can also glue them in place if desired)

3. While the "standard" hub is listed on our page, we also offer custom design work along printing. Since we already had the request for additional designs, we can offer some variations:

(Also available with pin holes instead of the technic balls)

And for everyone that is interested, we are currently developing a Macpherson hub with RC springs/dampeners.

Edited November 26, 20231 yr by Bensch55

Wait, there's actual (albeit plastic) bearings inside of these?! How are people finding their performance after some time of playing?

6 minutes ago, allanp said:

Wait, there's actual (albeit plastic) bearings inside of these?! How are people finding their performance after some time of playing?

Well, I've put a few hours on some more of them and (admittedly it was going 26km/h sometimes) the wheel hub seems to have gained more wobble, like the old two part ones. I was using extra lubrication, as well. I'm talking about the side to side wobble of the wheel attachment points relative to the rest of the hub. But that's, IMO, a huge improvement over the old hubs which would have just melted or come apart, like they did in the buwizz peugeot 9x8 mod.

Edited April 19, 2024Apr 19 by Aurorasaurus

1 hour ago, Aurorasaurus said:

Well, I've put a few hours on some more of them and (admittedly it was going 26km/h sometimes) the wheel hub seems to have gained more wobble, like the old two part ones. I was using extra lubrication, as well. I'm talking about the side to side wobble of the wheel attachment points relative to the rest of the hub. But that's, IMO, a huge improvement over the old hubs which would have just melted or come apart, like they did in the buwizz peugeot 9x8 mod.

That's good to know. So when they wear after a bunch of very high speed use, they get to like the old hubs? I can live with that.

Used them for work on modified Audis and in a custom made rally car, no issues so far. They have a very simillar overall deisgn to the planetary ones, the weak points are the side walls which eventually wear down, thereby increasing slack. But as said before, they are order of magnitude better than the standard ones and I hope to see them used more often in sets even if they may not be needed.

1 hour ago, allanp said:

That's good to know. So when they wear after a bunch of very high speed use, they get to like the old hubs? I can live with that.

I think they're still a bit better than the old ones, but with more use, probably. They're a pretty good option.

Has anyone tried injecting silicone grease?

2 hours ago, Lego Tom said:

Has anyone tried injecting silicone grease?

Judging by the previous comments they do come pre lubed, and mixing lubes ain't always good. If we know what the pre-applied lube was though it wouldn't hurt to add a bit more in this case, they do look quite dry in the pics.

8 minutes ago, allanp said:

Judging by the previous comments they do come pre lubed, and mixing lubes ain't always good. If we know what the pre-applied lube was though it wouldn't hurt to add a bit more in this case, they do look quite dry in the pics.

Because they are plastic, the lube is most likely silicone based. Mixing shouldn't be a problem.

9 hours ago, allanp said:

 they do look quite dry in the pics.

I think that's because I washed some off before taking the photo, but it was some time ago now and I may be misremembering.

Makes you wonder how they would compare to using a planetary hub as a non driven hub, would they handle a heavier load and last longer?

2 hours ago, Bricktrain said:

Makes you wonder how they would compare to using a planetary hub as a non driven hub, would they handle a heavier load and last longer?

Definitely better... Planetary hub must spin CV joint faster even if you didn't connect the transmission. Simply less torque is needed to spin the wheel