Printed linear bearing for 10mm rod

thingiverse

Produced using ABS material at a layer height of 0.2mm, this part employs steel balls measuring 1/8" (3.175mm) sourced from old bicycles. A complete bearing requires 88 such balls. The design was initially sketched in Google Sketchup and later refined using boolean operations in Blender after converting to .stl format. The "springs" exert pressure on the bearing, compensating for potential wear; they fit into small holes printed onto the bearing. This component is part of a self-replicable 3D printer/mill/PCB engraver project, with four bearings per axis for each axis. A design update includes captive M4 nuts, while another revision features improved track dimensions, requiring 0.2mm layer height and W/T=2 due to the thinner outer wall.