Tactical Rubber Band Pointer Spring Design

When I first posted about my wheel, one of the items I listed as outstanding was that I wanted to redesign my pointer spring mechanism. I had a good prototype design on the player 1 podium that worked really well, so why would I do this? Partial insanity? possibly. More logical reasons are that the design was really expensive, requiring two $7.50 torsion springs per pointer, making the pointer mechanism the single most expensive component, and I wanted 4 of them for my 4 player game. Also, the torsion springs had to be cut down to fit. Since the torsion springs are made of music wire, which seems to exhibit strength similar to adamantium, precise, clamped Dremel work amid a shower of sparks was necessary to do the cutting, so not very accessible for others to reproduce.

I had success in creating a 3D-printed spring mechanism when I created the shock absorbers beneath the wheel, so I tried that approach next. That turned out to be a dead end; in the small space required, I could not get the strength necessary from the 3D printed parts. Once, I managed a spring that had one successful spin before breaking.

I took what I learned from the spring experience though, and applied my findings to another elastic material - very strong rubber bands. They are officially called "Tactical" rubber bands for some reason that I have not looked up. Sounds cool, though.

So I replaced $15 of springs with a single 20 cent standard #82 Tactical Rubber Band.

 

The band clamps onto the pointer shaft through compression. The shaft mounts into a cartridge that allows the band to stretch and gather on either side as the pointer is rotated. The cartridge then mounts into the player podium, and the band is snaked through a path reminiscent the paths taken by tape media, to provide tension and anchoring. The band, thus anchored to the pointer shaft and the podium, will then snap the pointer back to the center position.

It feels really good and the tension is tuned to provide spin results similar to the show - a decent spin will go once around, give or take a couple wedges, and a hard spin (about the hardest I would allow without warning about disqualification for equipment abuse lol) will go about 1.5 rotations.

While I had to reprint some redesigned parts, the redesign is backwards compatible - the old torsion spring cartridges and shafts can be subbed in for the tactical band based cartridge at will.

While I was at it and had to reprint anyway, I took care of another shortcoming of my podiums - their inability to hold an add-on wedge. Of course, the proper way to hold an add-on wedge on MY wheel is magnetically. So I extended the podium tops and printed two magnets into each. Thus, my growing fleet of prize wedges can now sail atop the player podiums as they properly should.