2nd version 6200 Customized Gear Bearing - relative success with 9 planets

thingiverse

I tried a lot of bearings from Thingiverse (ball bearings, linear bearing, with and without cages, and finally this design) and I can honestly say that this design is the ONLY one that truly works well as a print-in-place with a 3D printer. Other designs that are not print-in-place and use non-3D-printed balls like airsoft balls are also very good. **Making this model and others of the same size but with different numbers of planets and other parameters led me to some surprising discoveries:** 1. As you scale down the model, you need to increase the Tol parameter (tolerance) because things will tend to stick together more easily. 2. The more planets you use, the harder it will be to make the printed model move. 3. Because I don't use any raft, the bottom of the model tends to stick to itself more easily, and a bit of sanding on that face makes it easier to unstick it. 4. Using a tolerance tol = 0.15 yielded these results: 11 planets -> never moved 9 planets (this model) -> moved after a LOT of effort, but never managed to get super smooth as the 2x bigger original model, despite using a Dremel to make it smoother. NEXT STEP TO IMPROVE: Print this model with tol = 0.2, 0.25, 0.3 Another potential improvement would be to use a smaller sized nozzle (I used 0.3 mm so this would mean trying with 0.1 or 0.2 mm) Customized version of https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:53451 Created with Customizer! https://www.thingiverse.com/apps/customizer/run?thing_id=53451