Printable Ball Bearing

A printable ball bearing. Very simple.

Best printed with high resolution support (from bed only) using a very fine print resolution, I used 0.06mm layer height and 3000mm/min print speed with 50% underspeed on outlines.

High fill percentage will help too, I had 8 layers top and bottom with 6 perimeter. Basically you want to try and get the balls to print as nicely as possible.

It's reasonably smooth, but it's a 3D printed plastic ball bearing so don't expect it to be anywhere near as smooth as one made from hardened ground steel.

I made this for use in printed assemblies requiring rotational moving parts which were too tightly constrained to use a gear bearing, printed gear bearings are by far the smoothest for 3D printed rotating parts but difficult to print any smaller than about 35mm diameter.