[Rerouter (Ryan)]

Found someone to lathe in return of a favor, going to order up:
NX20Z for the bottom of the DEC Ring gear
61704 for the top of the DEC Ring gear
AS2035 / AXK2035 for the locking nut at the end of the shaft,

And from the lathe friend will need:
20x26x0.5mm shim for the top bearing to rest on.
20x26x1mm shim for the bottom to rest on,

The bearings are actually much cheaper than I first thought, about $65 posted for the 3, the AXK2035 is being ordered as an option, as the other 2 prefer some pre-load, and loading down that nut may introduce some binding on the larger washer, this will cost me 2-3 mm of thread on the nut,

The way I see it, preloading it up on these bearing surfaces, and the increased rigidity on the shaft should mean what I loose in surface area to support radial loads should be compensated for, while drastically reducing away any friction in this low load use case.

--------------------------------------

I started looking into the RA for no particular reason, more as a what if case, as that would be much harder, would need to machine the body instead of the ring gear to pull off, the way I see it,

the bottom of the body could have a 44643 tapered bearing fitted

The top of the body could have something like a 35x47x7mm bearing + spacer ring sunk into it to hold the ring gear centered and rigid to remove any axial / radial loading from the bottom

The top of the ring gear could maybe have a 30x37x4mm bearing + spacer ring, this holds the shaft centered and removes any axial / radial loading from the top

That should wrap up that plan if I was to act on it, but I think lathing the RA body is a bit beyond what that favor would pay for, pity the weird shaft sizes mean that it would need spacer rings