3D printed bearing--"touch bearing"

thingiverse

I've never seen bearings like this before so I named it the "touch bearing". Let me know if you've seen one somewhere! *It really looks like "touching" the axle on the first version (alpha1.1). alpha2 is shown in the screenshots because it's much easier to model. It is a lot more for the thought than for the model. As FDM 3D printers are often not very accurate in making cylindrical axles, especially when the axles are laid flat for strength, just-a-circular-hole type of bearing often causes a lot of friction and makes it hard to rotate. From what I've seen, the only ways to solve it before I post this model are to purchase a metal bearing or making a 3D-printed rotary bearing and insert that into the model. The metal bearings can be costly, and installing the axle into the bearing is also problematic and involves a lot of sanding and hammering. 3D-printed rotary bearings, in tern, are often heavily dependent on the quality of the 3D printer. (Disclaimer: No meanings of looking down on those bearings--they are indeed great inventions, and I respect the creative minds behind :) ) Now... I present this bearing, which solves the problem above and provides a new solution to bearing. This bearing works by the thin arms bending when touching a bump on the axle, thus making it tolerant to the inaccuracy of 3D-printed axles--and become more generous on tolerances! My printer usually requires 0.2mm gap to assemble insertions, but 0 between this bearing and its axle. It seems to have a favored direction by shape, but in reality (with PLA) the favor is not obvious. I think it's a fairly simple model so I'm not putting the SOLIDWORKS file on. Shouldn't be too hard to model right? :) Am example of usage is shown in the last picture. SUPPORTS CYLINDRICAL AXLE ONLY