It was even the same brand. I love when hoarding materials pays off.

  • Zarcher@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    7 months ago

    Its a mass produced bearing type. Most likely the cheapest option for both devices. Optimizing a bearing for a gerbil wheel seems like the real overengineering in my opinion.

    • DogWater@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      7 months ago

      This is one of the counter intuitive things about production at scale. I remember I added factory cruise control to a Mazda 3 by buying the steering wheel with the buttons and having a technician flip a switch in the ECU. Everything else was already there.

      They never made any additional changes to non equipped cara because it’s cheaper to just produce 1 part or 1 configuration and digitally lock it out. 2500$ option with a 200$ fix.

    • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      7 months ago

      Thing is, when I had gerbils, their exercise wheel turned on a cylinder of plastic inside another cylinder of plastic. I also had one that was a wire wheel with sheet metal spokes and a wire base, the “bearings” were the wires of the base poked into holes in the spokes. A gerbil wheel having a ball bearing at all seems a little bit extra to me.