3D Print Ball Bearing in One Shot

by Ally Zhao

38K33010

Intro: 3D Print Ball Bearing in One Shot

This instructable will show you how to make a 3D printing looking ball bearing in one shot.

This bearing consists of 3 parts, the inner race, the outer race, and the balls. Most ball bearings have cage that is pressed in to hold the balls in, in order to print with high success rate, I could not make that.

Modeling Software: 123D Design Desktop

3D Printer: Up! Plus 2

Filament: ABS

Radius Clearance: 0.2mm

STEP 1: Define the Aperture and Outer Diameter

123D Design Desktop is a free, easy to use, 3D modeling program for beginners. If you have not already downloaded and installed it, do so from here: http://www.123dapp.com/design.

Launch 123D Design Desktop, create a circle sketch, diameter was 50mm, extrude this circle to be a cylinder with height = 6mm.

Then, create a small circle sketch diameter was 30mm, extrude it to cut the big cylinder.

STEP 2: Rolled Groove

1. Select the out race circle sketch, click 'Edit Dimension' then edit the diameter from 50mm to 43mm.

2. Repeat the above steps to edit the inner race circle sketch, change the diameter from 30mm to 37mm.

3. Extrude the profile between these two circle sketch to cut the object, it will be split into two pieces.

4. Place a torus still in the same center, major radius was 20mm, minor radius was 2.7mm.

5. Copy and paste the torus in same place.

6. Boolean -> Subtract the torus from out race, then subtract the torus from inner race.

STEP 3: Add the One Slipper

1. Place one sphere at point ( 40, 0 ), radius was 2.5mm.

2. Then select and move the sphere upward in the Front viewpoint with 0.2mm.

STEP 4: Circle Pattern to Add All the Slippers

Select the sphere, circle pattern to layout 20 balls along the groove.

STEP 5: Export to Print Out

Select all the objects, click the information icon in the Attributes Manager display bounding box to you for selected objects, this will be helpful for 3D Printing.

Then, export to STL file and print out.

STEP 6: Upgrade the Bearing

After printed the simple bearing successfully, you also can upgrade the bearing like this and more.

10 Comments

oonnllyy 8 years ago

What material / method was used to print the ball bearings? Thanks

Ally Zhao 9 years ago

Thanks for all of you. :-)

masprotech 9 years ago

I have seen where someone used a dual extruding 3d printer like a replicator 2x and used a water soluble 2nd media to hold the balls in place while printing then you simply wash it away and are left with a nice looking ball bearing.. Much like this one ... These are great results..I'm going to try it myself

capsulecorp 9 years ago

Oh O-O my toy!!! ...I did this same structure using 3 rings for a university project in 1999; it was a toy to sort colors -like a Rubik- moving the rings =) I got the highest rating that year... good memories º-º

Kafukai 9 years ago

Nice.

This is not good for heavy machinery or important auto parts. But for home things mechanism this can be useful.

bartworker 9 years ago

Looks like you just reached the last frontier in 3D printing, great work!

tomatoskins 9 years ago

So Cool! I love all the odd uses of 3d printers you can find here!