Parametric roller and slide bearing (Updated)

prusaprinters

Updated 2023-12-07 (see below) There are several designs for bearings (roller, ball and sliding) designs already in the internet.Some are customisable. I did not find one that I could tune to be accurately sizeable and printable. Therefor here is my design in Fusion 360 Format.You can customise:Inner diameterOuter diameterHeightClearancesNr of rollers (for the roller bearing. Someday maybe I will make this automatic))I also uploaded examples for the 608 and 6004 standardised bearings.The clearance is important. For best accuracy you should set it as small as possible. What is possible, is depending on your 3D printer and how good you tuned it in for the material you use. Normally a clearance of 0.2 mm should work. When the print is fused together, then either you have to fine tune your printer, or select a bigger clearance. The smaller the bearing the more critical. The 608 type bearing is already critical.Print with a layer height of 0.2 -0.1 mm. 100% infill.Likely you have to free the rollers after printing.Customizing is done via Fusion360>modify>change parameters:Select your Inner DiameterSelect your Outer DiameterSelect the HeightSelect your clearance (start with 0.2 mm)Select the number of rollers (choose a number that all the space is filled with rollers, but you still have at least a 0.2 mm distance between them)Export one of the 2 components (Slide or rolling bearing)Slice the .stl with your slicer for 0.2-0.1 layer and 100% infill and the material you want to use.Please share your experiences. Update about practical experience:I needed for a project 608 roller bearings. So I printed my own design with PLA as published here on my (reasonably) new MK4 (The published models were printed on a MK3S+).In the process of freeing up the rollers some broke. I had printed it with 0.1 mm “fast detail” layer and input shaping. With this profile the result was worse as with the MK3S+That is why I did some redesign of the model. I made the middle part of the roller a bit thicker. (See all files with “I3” in the name.)The result was that the clearance (first set to 0.2 mm in the Fusion file) becomes more critical.However I was able to print with 0.12 clearance and 0.15 mm layer “Structural” profile. Now the rollers were loose after removing the print from the plate. Printing the modified design  with 0.2 clearance is for the 608 bearing clearly too loose! With a little pressure the bearing falls apart.I also printed the I3 model with PETG 0.12 mm clearance 0.15 mm layer “Structural” and input shaping.Now I had to free up all the rollers one by one with a small pin. The result however was nearly perfect with very little play.Conclusion: You have to experiment with clearances and print setting when you print the small 608 roller bearing. A lot depends on the accuracy of your printer. All the new files are added.I added a picture of the modified bearings and one application.I wish you happy experimenting, and please share your result!