Degu Exercise Wheel
Hello everyone,
been a while since my last instructable. Being how at this moment we have 8 degus as pets we needed a couple more training wheels in the cages and the standard ones just aren't big enough.
The baking tin used here is 33 x 10 cm size making it bigger that big hamster wheels and even a good size for the rats.
Supplies
So here's what you'll need:
- seamless baking tin
- inline wheel and bearings (the one I used is 80mm)
- M8 size bolt with screw and couple of nuts
- M5 butt screw furniture lock x5
- a bunch of small washers to use as distancers
- a few toothpics
First you need to find the center of the wheel.
After that mark the holes through the inline wheel and make pilot holes for drilling.
Drill 5 holes in the baking tin with a metal drill, using a 5mm drill bit. Put the bearings into the wheels if they aren't already in place.
After that use the same drill bit to make the holes in the wheels bigger so that you can fit the furniture locks through them. They're need to be flat on one side and sticking out through the other.
Make sure to file the metal from the holes after drilling, we don't want any sharp bits sticking out causing injuries to our pets.
Check that the holes align. After that put the M8 bolt through the wheel and screw it tight. There should be a little bit of wiggle space but that's completely fine.
Turn the wheel around and put the toothpicks into the holes. I put eight (8) 1mm thick washers to have good clearance from the bolt and the baking tin. Toothpicks are used to keep them in place.
Now put the toothpicks with small washers through the holes and put an extra washer on the other side before putting the screw in. Tighten and your assembly should be ready!
The completed exercise wheel. Next we're gonna fasten it to the cage.
Put a smaller than a bigger washer and vice versa through the bars and tighten the nuts. I needed a bit of help to hold the inner nut with a u-key on the inside while tightening the outside one. At some point I'm gonna make a bit better mounting solution but this one works for now and was readily available.
Hope you have fun making this!