The 30-Cent Fidget Spinner (No Bearings Required) by rhoagland

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

This is a fidget spinner that was designed to not use any purchased bearings. It uses an embedded gear bearing for the center bearing and 6 US nickels for the outer weights. (Hence the 30-Cent title.)
The center bearing will require a little finesse in order to free it up, but you should be able to get it to spin fairly free if you are careful. Also, it spins better vertically than horizontally due to the weight of the spinner putting thrust load on the bearing. My plans are to make a center grip that also limits the side-to-side movement of the bearing with as little friction as possible. In the meantime, if anyone else has any ideas feel free to experiment!
I designed the outer caps to resemble the look of normal bearings, but let the center part of the nickels show through. Once you put the nickels inside, use a couple drops of glue to hold the caps on and encapsulate the nickels inside.
YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hJpunvQmgk&sns=em