Sorry to bother you again with my tubing issues, but it’s still an IIP ! (issue in progress )
As stated in my previous topic, I’m struggling to find the right 32mm tubes.
I found some, but it’s like 450km from home, and shipping is crazy …
But I can easily find stainless conduit, 32mm diameter and 1.2mm thickness (there’s this big electrician wholesaler that’s selling it everywhere I can think of).
But it’s too thin … @vicious1 recommend a minimum thickness of 1.3mm, and I definitely don’t want to compromise rigidity.
So, what’s your take on this ?
1.2mm stainless or 1.5mm galvanised ?
Stainless is often not completely straight. Maybe try some forwarding service or give people in the other thread time to see it, no use starting a second one.
Looks for stainless, galvanized, DOM, any TUBING you can find. Metal retailers, Ebay, Electrical Shops, Boat shops have stainless, Sometimes you can find closet rod the right diameter. Poke around a little and you are bound to find something.
Also remember some places stock sizes listed in imperial that will work. The stainless tube I got was listed as inch and a1/4 but was actually bang on 32mm.
1.3 is better than 1.2. 1.2 is a pretty solid minimum. I am using “thin wall” steel tube which is more than 1.6mm (.065") the outside diameter is critical, the thickness is a minimum. If I could have got 0.120" wall ~3mm thick tube, I would have, but I get my steel from work, and we didnt jave any thick wall in stock.
1.3mm is the minimum, is it not? 32mm conduit here, and probably in europe too, is 1.2mm, though our standard specifies 1.2mm±0.15mm wall so someone may be making it at 1.3 or even 1.35mm without the heavy gauge price premium but I’d be surprised!
The relevant EN standard may be different, it appears conduit specification is not harmonised like most of our electrical stuff is.
Would a triple vertical stack – three tubes — give enough strength to be able to use the 1.2mm? I don’t know exactly how it would be accomplished with the J Plate, but certainly it would mean a remix of the brace and an edit to the cut file for the J Plate. Not an ideal approach, but could it be a last resort work around for use of 1.2mm thin wall?
The wall thickness is not about machine rigidity, it is about resisting the point load of the bearings. So the Y rail, does not matter but the two X rails matter very much. with a 1.2mm wall and a slightly over tightened core you will crush the wall of teh X rails.
I had a 2mm walled stainless build at MRRF a few years back and haphazardly tighten the core for the demo, just in running with no load for 2 days we crushed flat spots into the tube…I was floored. The LR core is not as tight as the primo so we can go down to 1.3mm.
Hi all and in particular Laurent.
i am in South Africa starting on my build. Not sure if this is going to be of any help but here goes.
Like you I was battling to get 32mm tube. At the end of the day I eventually found a company that sells stainless steel hand rail components. It so happens that their main tubing they use is perfect.
Despite them claiming to be 31.75mm tubing my random inspection of their stock showed the tubing to actually fall within the recommended limits for LR4 albeit it on the bottom end of the limits.
Anyway. Hope this gives you another idea in terms of where you could look.
Cheers
Interesting - here in the UK we have a number of “standardised” (ish) handrail tube sizes, one of which is 33.7mm “size B”, not close enough for our purposes. I guess you have a different standard down there?
I should perhaps add that I use the word hand rail loosely. It would probably be more accurate to refer to stainless steel balustrades. Tomayto,Tomuto…probably all the same.
I’m sourcing parts right now in Switzerland. A country where it is notoriously difficult for non-professionals to source building materials persé. And the opposite of cheap. Of course.
The few offerings I could find for steel tubing with 30mm and 1.6-2mm wall thickness run me ~250.–. (For comparison, in Germany the same would cost me ~50-60.–.)
What I can get in the hardware stores is either stainless with d= 28 or 35mm, 1.5mm wall or steel with r= 3/4", 1.6mm wall.
Do you think I can get by with either 28 or 35mm until I can source the correct size? And are there STEP/OBJ files for the tube holders available for easy adaptation?
Not really. I suppose you could, but you would end up expending a lot of effort (see below) to build the LR4 incorrectly, then take it all apart and build it a second time correctly.
Nothing pre-made is available for that. You would pretty much have to re-engineer the whole design and then take the existing files and modify them in Fusion or some other CAD program. You would have to ensure that the distance between the top edge of the top rail and the bottom edge of the bottom rail remains constant (or the core will not fit), and using the 35mm tube would probably require modifying the core (and other parts) to avoid interference.
Sounds to me like way too much effort. Germany is right next door to you, would a day trip (or online ordering and shipping, or having a friend send it to you from there) be an option?
As Bartman mentioned, modifying the design is not a simple scale up/down thing and source files are not available. The thing is that the design has locked in dimensions (core, for example) and with scaling you would be outside these. I would strongly advice against it, if you value your time, I think you would spend more time than the 250 EUR hourly wise. Then again, 250 EUR for such pipes is outrageous.
I would also think A trip to Germany is in order. Last year we traveled to Austria with our car, small portion of the trip was through Germany. the Autobahn was quite fun.
Also, at least in Latvia there are few people who frequently travel with their buses the route from UK-France-Germany-Poland-Lithuania-Latvia and they offer on Facebook that they can take your package and deliver it along the way, maybe this is an option you could look into.
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