Cageless Roller Bearing

pinshape

Summary This design simplifies assembly compared to my previous cageless bearing project. Although it's not entirely cageless since rollers need constraint, 45° angled rollers make it relatively easy to manufacture with a frictionless fit. This is just a proof of concept; I used 0.2 tolerance for the mounting aid and printing is underway. UPDATE: I realize now that more spacing was needed. The inside and outside parts fit over the rollers on the mounting plate, but don't align properly due to slightly offset pins. Achieving a press fit requires precise adjustment - please inform me if you've successfully dialed it in. UPDATE 2: I corrected an error by adding tolerance to the outer ring after printing. Measured corrections were made to improve fit theory-wise. Note that a radius deviation of 0.1195 led to roller collapse during measurement. UPDATE 3: When loaded, rollers at the bottom are pushed outward, forcing those above together. This suggests that for the concept to work, a 45° roller angle is optimal since it minimizes movement-induced roller constellation collapse when not spinning. To print, flip this design 180 degrees; I used 6x14mm dowel pins as rollers. Unfortunately, customizer issues prevent loading attached libs, making this design non-functional. Shortcut functions and other libs are courtesy of OpenSCAD master parkinbot.