I see to remember that it's a Good Idea to use an odd number of bearing balls. I think it distributes the load better if there are imperfections in balls or races. Much like a three-legged or five-legged chair is more stable than four or six legs on an uneven floor.

Very cool! Another tip is that you want to have the walls as thick as possible so that the slicer will not print unneeded lines that could slow the bearing down. For overkill when printing bearings I set the wall thickness to 3.0 mm so that the ball bearing can roll around the grove of the print and not hit cross lines.

One of the best videos I’ve seen on 3d printed bearing

this is a really cool idea to save quite a bit of money on prototypes, large bearing can get expensive fast, now i can print them and test if my ideas work before commiting

Thanks! Will try to design them myself! Appreciate that you included the dimensions, will save me a ton of time testing things out!

Great content, reall nice to see a custom created bearings rather than being tied to standard offerings, would be great to see more testing at speed or different loads applied

Nice to see someone else doing this. I printed a thrust bearing to hold my 5kg spools horizontal for my printer. Basically just a bicycle shaped cage to hold 6 metal balls in a ring. I used some spare Plexiglas as the top and bottom to get a smoother and harder raceway, but it would probably work fine if I printed those too.

I really appreciate this type of content on KZfaq. Properly informative, even for a newbie like me 😂

Nice work. BTW, I've found that you don't need threaded inserts in situations where you aren't taking the screws out that often. Just thread direct into the plastic.

You all make it look so easy. Been struggling for weeks on this simple concept. Thank you for the video.

Nice video, It's really awesome to see the rover coming together!

I was also thinking of making my own bearings some time ago, but never done it. Nice job, it looks great!

Thank you. The information about permitted load made this already informative video 2 times better!!

You should add a little gap between the bolting surfaces. Then you could adjust the pre load by printing different size shim spacers.

I like where this project is going, thanks for sharing the design. As an engineer I was quickly making some calculations and changes in my mind while you were showing the 3D prints: 36 balls with 72 kg of load is 2 kg per ball and with a flat surface, the contact area of ball and surface is a single point of contact which is an infinite small area which results in an infinite high force on the plastic race. As long as you rotate the bearing, this will even out along the full circular contact area but as soon as you stop moving, things change. In time (and temperature) you will see that the balls create small dents at a certain location. Will this be a problem ? Yes, definitely. When will this become a problem ? It all depends and we will only know when we try this. 15 years ago we also stated that using PLA for 3D printing was a bad idea since it is bio degradable but we still do and printed stuff holds a very long time.

i really like this approach. When making mine a couple years ago the flat sections were printed diagonally which left a slughtly bumpy surface. to fix it I added a very narrow and shallow groove where the balls made contact. it still fused as a flat surface but the print path was concentric with the bearing. it worked much better after that.

This is really cool and well explained! Please do more!

Super nice design!

This is EXACTLY what I needed!

Good idea and well produced video, thanks.

What a great video! Really enjoyed.

superb video. i think i'll make quite a few of these. very interesting ideas. thank you!

Great video, well done.

Great work!

I refuse to press like because brass inserts look cool in white plastic (even though they do). I pressed like because this is a cool video that taught me a lot of interesting things.

Very well explained and definitely better suited (and cheaper) for 3D printed applications that do not require the thousands of Newton and tens of thousands of RPM that even the smallest of steel bearings can deliver. A significant advantage is that you can design the bearing as part of your machine. Steel bearings are designed to be fitted in metal seats and on metal axes. I just subscribed. Cya !

If you go with 6mm, you can use plastic BBs instead of bearings. Generally good for light loads outdoors like a lazy susan, so the bearings don't rust.

This is amazing. Good work and soooo useful

Good tutorial! These would be cool to make, now I just need a suitable project

Great video!! Thank you!!!

Thanks, this is helpful!

This video is excellent for learning TY :)

Good job. I'm waiting for improvements and testing.

In my 3d printed bearings, I use plastic balls for toy guns. I make them so I can put as many balls as is bossible in the outer race. I then whack the inner race with a hammer to suprise the plastic only 1 time. They fall together and run quite smoothly. I've used them in a few projects and they seem to be working as none of them have failed.. I use no bearing cage.

Thank you sooooooo much for this. You are AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!

Amazing 🤩 love this keep it up 👍

Sehr gut - THX

GODDAMN BOY IVE JUST SEARCHED THIS KIND OF VIDEO TWO DAYS AGO!

Cool work. I wonder if a design that doesn't use a bearing cage but instead closely packed bearings would get rid of the play in the bear you show at ~11 minutes? This is what's used in bicycle hubs and headsets, works very well.

I've heard that some people use airsoft bbs for bearings. Sounds fun and tbh should work. Tolerances aren't that crucial if it is made of plastic

Preload! Your "radial load" bearings are similar to angular contact ball bearings and those perform best with and because of preload. Simplest modification would be to slightly reduce the height of inner race so there's a small amount of (axial) preload when the screws are fully tightened. However 1) this will mean that the balls will start to mainly ride on the 45 degree secondary races and that's not ideal if loads are mostly radial and 2) there will still be some play from the balls sliding laterally on the secondary race. One 'ideal' solution would be to have the balls ride on both primary and secondary races. To achieve that, first make the primary race not vertical but slighly 'open' by -5 to -15 degrees (visual context at 5:10) and then preload can ensure the dual contact on both inner and outer races (though admittedly only if the print is to very close to dimension). More load bearing contact more better. The end result will be very similar to angular contact ball bearings with a contact angle of 25 to 30 degrees (if on dimension and preload leads to dual contact or 5 to 15 otherwise) and the play will be reduced to close to zero (plastic not being rigid). The other 'ideal' option is to simply copy the angular contact bearing design so instead of main+auxiliary race you have a round race with a slightly bigger radius than the bearing balls you're using. The best way to achieve that is to just fillet the above design since that ensures no overhangs past 45. Also use some lubricant (reduces noise and cage friction).

Very nice. Glad I stumbled onto this. Now we can make bearings of pretty much any size. How small can you go with this design?

This is cool but I imagine there's very few applications where it makes sense. Sure quality industrial bearing can get expensive but common grade bearing are pretty cheap, even with diameters around 60 or 70mm, we're talking like $10 - and even cheaper Chinese bearings will have better tolerances and radial play than your 3D printed bearings. This is useful if you need something within in a few hours, or maybe for very specific weird geometry, but I don't see much other value.

Perfeito!

ze bearing iz nice

Have you considered embedding the bearings, by pausing the printhead at the correct layer and then placing the carriage inside, before continuing the print?

Is there any way to completely remove backlash on a 3d printed bearings? Also your bearings looks bigger then typical manufactured bearings, anyway your way to design a bearing is awesome, I'll try to make my own based on your design, thanks!

Cool idea, but how long do they last? and what loads can you apply? and what material is best? but it can always hold for small stuff.. okay i have to do some testing :-) and can you create a pressure greased bushing for longer lifespans and load??

have you considered using plastic bbs to have similar hardness materials contacting instead of metal and plastic which will probably wear down the plastic very fast?

zis ball bearinz zat i uzed in ze rover, zere are many of zem hizing in plain zight

Maybe you could try a 3dhojor filament.😃

not sure how true or significant, but i heard white filament wears your printer faster due to the white dye containing titanium.

Видел у какого то ютубера, он делал вставки из металлической проволоки под шарики. Вставлял металлические кольца изготовленные из ровного прутка, делал что то на подобии рельс для шариков сверху и снизу. Это позволяло выдерживать бОльшие нагрузки без деформации пластика стальными шариками.

You can make the play in the angluar contact bearing adjustable by adding a gap in between the two inner races. Use a rubber O-ring or a piece of TPU as a kind of spring allows for easy adjustability

Very sick video. Bro even gives away the design files for free. How can you not subscribe? 😮

Well done. Where do you purchase the balls in quantity?

wouldnt using nylon balls be better so it doesnt make grooves?

Someone is using the correct measuring units are rare these days.

Еще шайбу железную подложить и будет огонь.

You mean bearing races

This timing is violating my privacy lmaooo I was about to dive in myself into topic since I need cusom bearing for diy steering wheel with arduino, need rather uncommon diameter

Может, на русском вещать все-таки?

Use magnets